The living age

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TREATISE

UPON THE

NATURE AND TREATMENT

OF

MORBID SENSIBILITY

OF THE

RETINA,

OR

WEAKNESS OF SIGHT.

Being the Dissertation to which the Boylston Medical Prize for 1848 was
awarded upon the following queslion : " What is the nature and best mode of
treatment of that affection of the eyes commonly called Morbid Sensibility of the
Retina?"

BY JOHN II. DIX, M. D, M. M. S. S.

" Scribere jussit amor." — Ovid.
Boston : Published and for sale by William D. Ticknor & Co. mdccc xlix.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.— No. 273.— 11 AUGUST, 1849.

From Bentley's Miscellany.
THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.
CHAPTER I.

As I do not intend that any human being shall
read this narrative until after my decease, I feel
no desire to suppress or to falsify any occurrence
or event of my life, which I may at the moment
deem of sufficient importance to communicate. I
am aware how common a feeling, even amongst
those who have committed the most atrocious
crimes, this dread of entailing obloquy upon their
memories is ; but I cannot say that I participate
in it. Perhaps I wish to offer some atonement to
society for my many and grievous misdeeds ; and,
it may be, the disclosures I am about to make will
be considered an insufficient expiation. I cannot
help this, now. There is one from whom no se-
crets are hid, by whom I am already judged.

I regret that I did not execute this wretched
task long ago. Should I live to complete it, I
shall hold out longer than I expect ; for I was
never ready at my pen, and words sometimes will
not come at my bidding. Besides, so many years
have elapsed since the chief events I am about to
relate took place, that even they no longer come
before me with that distinctness which they did
formerly. They do not torture me now, as of old
times. The caustic has almost burnt them out of
my soul. I will, however, give a plain, and, as
nearly as I am able, a faithful statement. I will
offer no palliation of my offences, which I do not
from my soul believe should be extended to me.

I was born on the 23d of October, 1787. My
father was a watch-case maker, and resided in a
street in the parish of Clerkenwell. I went a few
months ago to look at the house, but it was taken
down ; indeed, the neighborhood had undergone
an entire change. I, too, was somewhat altered
since then. 1 wondered at the time which of the
two was the more so.

My earliest recollection recalls two rooms on a
second floor, meanly furnished ; my father, a tall,
dark man, with a harsh, unpleasing voice ; and
my mother, the same gentle, quiet being whom I
afterwards knew her.

My father was a man who could, and sometimes
did, earn what people in his station of life call a
great deal of money ; and yet he was constantly
in debt, and frequently without the means of sub-
sistence. The cause of this, I need hardly say,
was his addiction to drinking. Naturally of a
violent and brutal temper, intoxication inflamed
his evil passions to a pitch — not of madness, for
he had not that excuse — but of frenzy. It is weii
known that gentleness and forbearance do not
allay, but stimulate a nature like this ; and scenes
of violence and unmanly outrage are almost the

CCLXXIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 16

sole reminiscences of my childhood. Perhaps the
circumstance of my having been a sufferer in one
of these ebullitions, served to impress them more
strongly upon my mind.

One evening I had been permitted to sit up to
supper. My father had recently made promises
of amendment, and had given an earnest of his in-
tention by keeping tolerably sober during three
entire days ; and upon this festive occasion — for
it was the anniversary of my mother's marriage —
he had engaged to come home the instant he quit-
ted his work. He returned, however, about one
o'clock in the morning, and in his accustomed
state. The very preparations for his comfort,
which he saw upon the table, served as fuel to his
savage and intractable passions. It was in vain
that my mother endeavored to soothe and pacify
him. He seized a stool on which I was accus-
tomed to sit, and levelled a blow at her. She
either evaded it, or the aim was not rightly di-
rected, for the stool descended upon my head and
fractured my skull.

The doctor said it was a miracle that I recov-
ered ; and indeed it was many months before I did
so. The unfeeling repulse I experienced from
my father, when, on the first occasion of my leav-
ing my bed, I tottered towards him, I can never
forget. It is impossible to describe the mingled
terror and hatred which entered my bosom at that
moment, and which never departed from it. It
may appear incredible to some that a child so
young could conceive so intense a loathing against
its own parent. It is true, nevertheless ; and, as
I grew, it strengthened.

I will not dwell upon this wretched period of
my life ; for even to me, at this moment, and after
all that I have done and suffered, the memory of
that time is wretchedness.

One night, about two years afterwards, my
father was brought home on a shutter by two
watchmen. He had fallen into the New River
on his return from a public house in the vicinity
of Saddler's Wells Theatre, and was dragged out
just in time to preserve for the present a worth-
less and degraded life. A violent cold supervened,
which settled upon his lungs ; and, in about a
month, the doctor informed my mother that her
husband was in a rapid decline. The six months
that ensued were miserable enough. My mother
was out all day, toiling for the means of subsis-
tence for a man who was not only ungrateful for
her attentions, but who repelled them with the
coarsest abuse.

I was glad when he died, nor am I ashamed
to avow it ; and I almost felt contempt for my
mother when the poor creature threw' herself upon
the body in a paroxysm of grief, calling it by
those endearing names which indicated a love he

242

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

had neither requited nor deserved. Had I been
so blest as to have met with one to love me as
that woman loved my father, I had been a differ-
ent, and a better, and, perhaps, a good man !

" Will you not kiss your poor father, John,
and see him for the last time?" said my mother
on the morning of the funeral, as she took me by
the hand.

No ; I would not. I was no hypocrite then.
It is true I was terrified at the sight of death, but
that was not the cause. The manner in which he
had repulsed me nearly three years before, had
never for a moment departed from my mind.
There was not a day on which I did not brood
upon it. I have often since recalled it, and with
bitterness. I remember it now.

My mother had but one relation in the world —
an uncle, possessed of considerable property, who
resided near Luton, in Bedfordshire. She ap-
plied to him for some small assistance to enable
her to pay the funeral expenses of her husband.
Mr. Adams — for that was her uncle's name — sent
her two guineas, accompanied by a request that
she should never apply to, or trouble him again.
There was, however, one person who stepped for-
ward in this extremity — Mr. Ward, a tradesman,
with whom my mother had formerly lived as a
servant, but who had now retired from business.
He offered my mother an asylum in his house.
She was to be his housekeeper ; and he promised
to take care of, and one day to provide for, me.
It was not long before we were comfortably settled
in a small private house in Coppice-row, where,
for the first time in my life, I was permitted to
ascertain that existence was not altogether made
up of sorrow.

The old gentleman even conceived a strong
liking, it may be called an affection, for me. He
had stood godfather to me at my birth ; and I be-
lieve, had I been his own son, he could not have
treated me with more tenderness. Pie sent me to
school, and was delighted at the progress I made,
or appeared to make, which he protested was
scarcely less than wonderful ; a notion which the
tutor was, of course, not slow to encourage and
confirm. He predicted that I should inevitably
make a bright man, and become a worthy member
of society ; the highest distinction, in the old gen-
tleman's opinion, at which any human being could
arrive. Alas ! woe to the child of whom favora-
ble predictions are hazarded ! There never yet, I
think, was an instance in which they were not
falsified.

We had been residing with Mr. Ward about
three years, when a slight incident occurred which
has impressed itself so strongly upon my memory
that I cannot forbear relating it. Mr. Ward had
sent me with a message into the city, where, in
consequence of the person being from home, I was
detained several hours. When I returned, it ap-
peared that Mr. Ward had gone out shortly after
me, and had not mentioned the circumstance of his
having despatched me into the city. I found my
mother in a state of violent agitation. She in-
quired where I had been, and I told her.

" I can hardly believe you, John," she said;
" are you sure you are telling me the truth?"

I was silent. She repeated the question. I
would not answer ; and she bestowed upon me a
sound beating.

I bore my punishment with dogged sullenness,
and retired into the back kitchen, in a corner of
which I sat down, and, with my head between my
hands, began to brood over the treatment I had
received. Gradually there crept into my heart
the same feeling I remembered to have conceived
against my father — a feeling of bitter malignity
revived by a fresh object. I endeavored to quell
it, to subdue it, but I could not. I recalled all
my mother's former kindness to me, her present
affection for me ; and I reminded myself that this
was the first time she had ever raised her hand
against me. This thought only nourished the
feeling, till the aching of my brain caused it to
subside into moody stupefaction.

I became calmer in about an hour, and arose,
and went into the front kitchen. My mother was
seated at the window, employed at her needle ;
and, as she raised her eyes, I perceived they were
red with weeping. I walked slowly towards her,
and stood by her side.

"Mother!" I said, in a low and tremulous
voice.

" Well, John ; I hope you are a good boy
now."

" Mother !" I repeated, " you don't know how
you have hurt me."

" I am sorry I struck you so hard, child ; I did
not mean to do it ;" and she averted her head.

" Not that — not that!" I cried passionately,
beating my bosom with my clenched hands. " It 's
here, mother — here. I told you the truth, and
you would not believe me."

" Mr. Ward has returned now," said my
mother ; " I wrill go and ask him ;" and she arose.

I caught her by the gown. "Oh. mother !" I
said, " this is the second time you would not be-
lieve me. You shall not go to Mr. Ward yet!"
and I drew her into the seat. " Say first that you
are sorry for it — only a word. Oh, do say it !"

As I looked up, I saw the tears gathering in
her eyes. I fell upon my knees, and hid my face
in her lap. "No, no; don't say anything now
to me — don't — don't!" A spasm rose from my
chest into my throat, and I fell senseless at her
feet.

My mother afterwards told me that it was the
day of the year on which my father died, and she
feared from my lengthened stay that I had come
to harm. Dear, good woman ! Oh ! that I might
hope to see her once more, even were it but for
one moment — for we shall not meet in heaven !

It was a cruel blow that deprived us of our kind
protector ! Mr. Ward died suddenly, and without
a will ; and my mother and I were left entirely
unprovided with means. The old gentleman had
often declared his intention of leaving my mother
enough to render her comfortable during the re-
mainder of her days, and had expressed his deter-
mination of setting me on in the world immedi-

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

243

ately I became of a proper age. It could hardly
be expected that the heir-at-law would have ful-
filled these intentions, even had he been cognizant
of them. He was a low attorney, living some-
where in the neighborhood of Drury-lane ; and
when he attended the funeral, and during the hour
or two he remained in the house after it, it was
quite clear that he had no wish to retain anything
that belonged to his late relative except his prop-
erty, and his valuable and available effects. He
however paid my mother a month's wages in ad-
vance, presented me a dollar to commence the
world with, shook hands with us, and wished us
well.

It was not long before my mother obtained a
situation as servant in a small respectable family
in King-street, Holborn ; and, as I was now near-
ly eleven years of age, it was deemed by her
friends high time that I should begin to get my
own living. Such small influence, therefore, as
my mother could command, was set on foot in my
behalf; and I at length got a place as errand-boy
to a picture-dealer in Wardour-street, Oxford-
street. The duties required of me in this situa-
tion, if not of a valuable description, were, at
least, various. I went with messages, I attended
sales, I kept the shop, I cleaned the knives and
shoes, and, indeed, performed all those services
which it is the province of boys to render, some
of which are often created because there happens
to be boys to do them.

This routine was, for a time, irksome. When
I recalled the happy days I had spent under the
roof of Mr. Ward, and the. hopes and expectations
he had excited within me of a more prosperous
commencement of life — hopes which his death had
so suddenly destroyed — it is not surprising that I
should have felt a degree of discontent of my con-
dition, for which I had no other cause. As I sat
by the kitchen fire of an evening, when my day's
work was done, I often pictured to myself the old
man lying where we had left him in the church-
yard, mouldering insensibly away, unconscious of
rain, or wind, or sunshine, or the coming of night,
or the approach of day, wrapped in a shroud which
would outlast its wearer, and silently waiting for
oblivion. These thoughts became less frequent as
time wore on ; but I have never been able to dis-
sociate the idea of death from those hideous con-
ditions of mortality.

My master, Mr. Bromley, when I first entered
his service, was a man of about the middle age,
and of rather grave and formal manner. He had
not a bad heart ; but I have since discovered that
what appeared to my boyish fancy a hard and cold
selfishness was but the exterior of those narrow
prejudices which too many of that class, if not of
all classes, indulge, or rather inherit. He felt that
a distance ought to be preserved between himself
and his servant ; and what he thought he ought to
do, he always did ; so that I had been with him a
considerable period before he even addressed a
word to me which business did not constrain him
to utter.

He had a daughter, a girl about eighteen years
of age. WThat a human being was Louisa Brom-
ley ! She was no beauty ; but she had a face
whose sweetness was never surpassed. I saw
something like it afterwards in the faces of some
of Raffaele's angels. The broad and serene fore-
head, the widely-parted eyebrow, the inexplicable
mouth, the soul that pervaded the whole coun-
tenance ! I can never forget that face ; and,
when I call it back to memory now, I admire it
the more because, to use the modern jargon, there
was no intellect in it. There was no thought, no
meditation or premeditation ; but there was nature,
and it was good-nature.

Her gentleness and kindness soon won upon
me. To be kind to me was at all times the way
to win me, and the only way. I cannot express
the happiness I felt at receiving and obeying any
command from her. A smile, or the common
courtesy of thanks from her lips, repaid me a
hundred-fold for the performance of the most
menial office.

I had now been with Mr. Bromley about four
years. I employed my leisure, of which I had a
great deal, in reading. All the books I could
contrive to borrow, or that fell in my way, I de-
voured greedily. Nor did I confine myself ex-
clusively to one branch of reading — I cannot call
it study. But my chief delight was to peruse
the lives of the great masters of painting, to
make myself acquainted with the history and the
comparative merits of their several performances,
and to endeavor to ascertain how many and what
specimens existed in this country. I had, also, a
natural taste for painting, and sometimes surprised
my master by the remarks I ventured to make upon
productions he might happen to purchase, or which
had been consigned to him for sale.

Meanwhile, I was permitted to go out in the
afternoon of each alternate Sunday. Upon these
occasions, I invariably went to see my mother.
How well can I remember the gloomy under-
ground kitchen in which I always found her, with
her Bible before her on a small round table ! With
what pleased attention did she listen to me when I
descanted on the one subject upon which I con-
stantly dwelt — the determination I felt, as soon as
I had saved money enough, and could see a little
more clearly into my future prospects, to take her
from service, that she might come and live with
me ! This was, in truth, the one "absorbing
thought — it might almost be termed the one pas-
sion— of my existence at that time. I had no
other hope, no other feeling, than that of making
her latter years a compensation for the misery she
must have endured during my father's life.

One Sunday when I called, as usual, an old
woman answered the door. She speedily satisfied
my inquiries after my mother. She had been
very ill for some days, and was compelled to keep
her bed. My heart sunk within me. I had seen
her frequently, in former years, disfigured by her
husband's brutality ; I had seen her in pain, in
anguish, which she strove to conceal ; but I had

244

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WAKD GIBSON.

never known her to be confined to her room. When
I saw her now, young as I was, and unaccustomed
to the sight of disease, I involuntarily shrunk back
with horror. She was asleep. I watched her for
a few minutes, and then stole softly from the room,
and returned to my master's house.

He was gone to church with his daughter. I
followed thither, and waited under the portico till
they came forth. I quickly singled them out from
the concourse issuing from the church-doors. I
drew my master aside, and besought him to spare
me for a few days, that I might go and attend my
mother, who was very ill.

" Is she dying ?" he inquired.

I started. " No, not dying. Oh, no !"

" Well, John, I can't spare you ; we are very
busy now, you know."

And what was that to me? It is only on occa-
sions like these, that the value of one's services
is recognized. I thought of this at the time. I
turned, in perplexity, to Louisa Bromley. She
understood the silent appeal, and interceded for
me. I loved her for that ; I could have fallen
down at her feet, and kissed them for it. She
prevailed upon the old man to let me go.

The people of the house at which my mother
was a servant were kind, and even friendly. They
permitted me to remain with her.

I never left her side for more than half an hour
at a time. She grew worse rapidly, but I would
not believe it. My mother, however, was fully
aware of her situation. She told me frequently,
with a smile, which I could not bear to see upon
her face, it was so unlike joy, but it was to com-
fort me — she told me that she knew she was about
to die, and she endeavored to impress upon me
those simple maxims of conduct for my future life
which she had herself derived from her parents.
She must not die — must not ; and I heard with
impatience, and heedlessly, the advice she en-
deavored to bestow upon me.

She died. The old nurse told me she was
dead. It could not be — she was asleep. My
mother had told me, not an hour before, that she
felt much better, and wanted a little sleep ; and at
that moment her hand was clasped in mine. The
lady of the house took me gently by the arm, and,
leading me into an adjoining room, began to talk
to me in a strain, I suppose, usually adopted upon
such occasions— for I knew not what she said to
me.

In about two hours I was permitted to see my
mother again. There was a change — a frightful
change ! The nurse, I remember, said something
about her looking like one asleep. I burst into a
loud laugh. Asleep ! that blank, passive, im-
penetrable face like sleep — petrified sleep ! I
enjoined them to leave me, and they let me have
my own way ; for, boy as I was, they were
frightened at me.

I took my mother's hand, and wrung it violently.
I implored her to speak to me once more, to repeat
that she still loved me, to tell me that she forgave
all my faults, all my omissions, all my sins to-

wards her. And then I knew she was dead, and
fell down upon my knees to pray ; but I could
not. Something told me that I ought not — some-
thing whispered that I ought rather to ; but

I was struck senseless upon the floor.

The mistress of my mother, who was a good
and worthy woman, offered to pay her funeral ex-
penses ; but I would not permit it. Not a far-
thing would I receive from her ; out of my own
savings I buried her.

If I could have wept — but I never could weep
— when this calamity befell me, I think that im-
pious thought would never have entered my brain.
That thought was, that the Almighty was unjust
to deprive me of the only being in the world who
loved me, who understood me, who knew that I
had a heart, and that, when it was hurt and out-
raged, my head was not safe — not to be trusted.
That thought remained with me for years.

CHAPTER II.

Five years elapsed. The grief occasioned by
my mother's death having in some measure sub-
sided, my thoughts became concentrated upon
myself with an intensity scarcely to be conceived.
A new passion took possession of my soul ; I
would distinguish myself, if possible, and present
to the world another instance of friendless poverty
overcoming and defying the obstacles and impedi-
ments to its career. With this view constantly
before me, I read even more diligently than here-
tofore. I made myself a proficient in the princi-
ples of mathematics ; I acquired some knowledge
of mechanical science ; but, above all, I took every
opportunity of improving my taste in the fine arts.
This last accomplishment was soon of infinite
service to me ; many gentlemen, who frequented
our shop, were pleased to take much notice of
me ; my master was frequently rallied upon
having a servant who knew infinitely more of
his business than himself; and my opinion, on one
or two remarkable occasions, was taken in prefer-
ence to that of my employer.

Mr. Bromley naturally and excusably might
have conceived no slight envy of my acquire-
ments ; but he was not envious. Shall I be far
wrong when I venture to say, that few men are so,
where pecuniary interest points out the impolicy
of their encouraging that feeling? Be this as
it may, he treated me with great kindness ; and I
was grateful for it, really and strongly so. I had
been long since absolved from the performance of
those menial duties which had been required of
me when I first entered his service ; my wages
were increased to an extent which justified me in
calling them by the more respectable term, salary ;
I was permitted to live out of the house ; and, in
all respects, the apparent difference and distance
between my master and myself were sensibly
diminished.

During this period of five years I never re-
ceived one unkind word or look from Louisa
! Bromley ; and the affection I bore towards this
j young woman, which was the affection a brother

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

245

might have felt, caused me to strive by every
means at my command to advance the fortunes of
her father. And, indeed, the old man had' be-
come so attached to me — partly, and I doubt not
unconsciously, because my talents were of value
to him — that I should not have had the heart,
even had my inclinations prompted me, to desert
him. It is certain that I might have improved
my own position by doing so.

At this time Frederick Steiner became ac-
quainted with Mr. Bromley. He was a young
man about thirty years of age, of German descent,
and possessed of some property. The manners
of Steiner were plausible, he was apparently can-
did, his address indicated frankness and entire
absence of guile, and he was handsome ; yet I
never liked the man. It is commonly supposed
that women are gifted with the power of detecting
the worst points of the characters of men at the
first glance. This gift is withheld when they first
behold the man they are disposed to love. This,
at any rate, was the case with Louisa Bromley.

Not to dwell upon this part of my narrative, in
a few months Bromley's daughter was married to
Steiner, who was taken into partnership.

I must confess I was deeply mortified at this.
I myself had conceived hopes of one day becom-
ing Bromley's partner ; and my anxiety for the
happiness of his daughter led me to doubt whether
she had not made a choice which she might have
occasion afterwards to deplore. However, things
went on smoothly for a time. Steiner was civil,
nay, even friendly to me ; and the affection he
evinced towards his little boy, who was born about
a year after the marriage, displayed him in so
amiable a light, that I almost began to like the
man.

It was not very long, however, before Steiner
and I came to understand each other more perfect-
ly. He was possessed with an overweening
conceit of his taste in pictures, and I on my part
obstinately adhered to my own opinion, whenever I
was called upon to pronounce one. This led to
frequent differences, which commonly ended in a
dispute, which Bromley was in most cases called
upon to decide. The old man, doubtless, felt the
awkwardness of his position ; but, as his interest
was inseparable from a right view of the question
at issue, he commonly decided with me.

Upon these occasions Steiner vented his mor-
tification in sneers at my youth, and ironical com-
pliments to me upon my cleverness and extraor-
dinary genius ; for both of which requisites, as
he was signally deficient in them, he especially
hated me. I could have repaid his hatred with
interest, for I kept it by me in my own bosom,
and it accumulated daily.

I know not how it happened that the child
wound itself round my heart, but it was so. It
seemed as though there were a necessity that, in
proportion as I detested Steiner, I must love his
child. But the boy, from the earliest moment he
could take notice of anything, or could recognize
anybody, had attached himself to me ; and I loved

him, perhaps for that cause, with a passionate
fondness which I can scarcely imagine to be the
feeling even of a parent towards his child.

If I were not slow by nature to detect the first
indications of incipient estrangement, I think 1
should have perceived, in less than two years after
Steiner had been taken into partnership by Mr.
Bromley, a growing reserve, an uneasy constraint,
in the manners of the latter, and a studied, an al-
most formal civility on the part of his daughter.
I know there must have been something of the
kind, although it was not at the time apparent to
me. I am certain, at all events, there was less
cordiality, less friendship, in the deportment of
Mrs. Steiner towards me ; a circumstance which
I remember to have considered the result of her
altered situation. The terms of almost social
equality, however, were no longer observed.

One Mr. Taylor, a very extensive picture-dealer,
who lived in the Haymarket, made several overtures
to me about this time. He had heard many gen-
tlemen of acknowledged taste speak of me in the
highest terms ; and, in truth, I was now pretty
generally recognized throughout the trade as one
of the best judges of pictures in London. I had
more than one interview, of his own seeking, with
this gentleman. He made me a most flattering
and advantageous offer : he would have engaged
my services for a certain number of years, and at
the expiration of the period he would have bound
himself to take me into partnership. I had re-
ceived many similar offers before, although none
that could be for a moment compared, on the
score of emolument and stability, with this. I
rejected those for the sake of Bromley ; I rejected
this for my own.

Shall I be weak enough to confess it? The
respect I bore for the old man even now ; my af-
fection for his daughter, my love for the child,
went some part of the way towards a reason for
declining Taylor's proposal ; but it did not go all
the way. I hated Steiner so intensely, so mor-
tally, and he supplied me daily with such addi-
tional cause of hatred, that I felt a species of
excitement, of delight, in renewing from time to
time my altercations with him ; a delight which
was considerably increased by the fact that he was
quite incapable of competing with me in argument.
There was another reason, which added a zest, if
anything could do so, to the exquisite pleasure I
derived from tormenting him — the belief I enter-
tained that Bromley and himself dared not part
with me ; they knew my value too well. Brom-
ley, at least, I was well aware, was conscious
enough of that.

I had been attending one day a sale of pictures,
the property of a certain nobleman whose collection,
thirty years ago, was the admiration of connois-
seurs. M. (I need not give his name, but

he is still living) had employed me to bid for sev-
eral amongst the collection ; and had requested my
opinion of a few, the merit of which, although
strongly insisted upon, he was disposed to doubt.
When I returned in the evening, I saw Steiner in

246

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

the shop waiting for me, and — for hate is quick
in these matters, quicker than love — I knew that
he meditated a quarrel. I was not mistaken. He
looked rather pale, and his lip quivered slightly.

"And so," said he, "you have been holding
several conversations with Mr. Taylor lately :
haven't you, Mr. Gibson?"

" Who told you that I had been holding con-
versations with him?"

" No matter: you have done so. Pray may I
ask the tenor of them?"

" Mr. Taylor wished to engage my services," I
replied, " and I declined to leave Mr. Bromley."

" That's not very likely," said Steiner with a
sneer.

Steiner was right there ; it was not very likely.
He might with justice consider me a fool for not
having embraced the offer.

" I suppose," pursued Steiner in the same tone,
"Mr. would follow you to your new situa-
tion. You would select his pictures for him as
usual, doubtless."

" Doubtless I should," said I with a cool smile

that enraged him. "Mr. would follow me

certainly, and many others would follow him, Mr.
Steiner."

"I'll tell you what it is," cried Steiner, and
a flush overspread his face; "Taylor has been
using you for his own purposes. You have been
endeavoring to undermine our connection, and
have been serving him at the same time that you
have been taking our wages."

It was not a difficult matter at any time to move
me to anger. I approached him, and with a glance
of supreme scorn replied, "It is false! — nay, I
don't fear you — it is a lie — an infamous lie !"

Steiner was a very powerful man, and in the
prime of manhood ; I was young, and my limbs
were not yet fixed — not set. He struck me a
violent blow on the face. I resisted as well as I
was able ; but what can weakness do against
strength, even though it have justice on its side ?
He seized me by the cravat, and, forcing his
knuckles against my throat, dealt me with the
other hand a violent blow on the temple, and
felled me to the earth. 0 that I had never risen
from it ! It had been better.

When I came to my senses, for the blow had
for a while stunned me, I arose slowly, and with
difficulty. Steiner was still standing over me in
malignant triumph, and I could see in the ex-
pression of his eyes the gratified conviction he felt |
of having repaid the long score of ancient grudges
in which he was indebted to -me. His wife was
clinging to his arm, and as I looked into her face I
perceived terror in it, certainly ; but there was no
sympathy — nay, that is not the word — I could not
have borne that; there was no sorrow, no interest,
no concern about me. My heart sickened at this.
Bromley was there also. He appeared slightly
perplexed ; and, misconceiving the meaning of my
glance, said coldly, but hurriedly, " You brought
it entirely upon yourself, Mr. Gibson."

I turned away, and walked to the other end of

the shop for my hat. I had put it on, and was about
leaving them. As I moved towards the door. I
was near throwing down the little boy, who had
followed me, and was now clinging to the skirt
of my coat, uttering in imperfect accents my name.
I looked down. The little thing wanted to come
to me to kiss me. Sweet innocent ! there was
one yet in the world to love me. I would have
taken the child in my arms ; but Mrs. Steiner ex-
claimed abruptly, " Come away, Fred — do; I in-
sist upon it, sir." From that time, and for a long
time, I hated the woman for it.

I retreated to my lodging, and slunk to my
own room with a sense of abasement, of degra-
dation, of infamy, I had never felt before. Mrs.
Matthews, the woman of the house, who had an-
swered the door to me, and had perceived my
agitation, followed me up stairs. She inquired
the cause, and was greatly shocked at the fright-
ful contusion upon my temple. I told her all, for
my heart was nigh bursting, and would be re-
lieved. She hastened down stairs for an embro-
cation, which the good woman had always by her,
and returning with it, began to bathe my fore-
head.

" Wouldn't I trounce the villain for it," she
said, as she continued to apply the lotion.

" What did you say, Mrs. Matthews?" and I
suddenly looked up.

" Why, that I 'd have the rascal punished —
that *s what I said. Hanging "s too good for such
a villain."

The kind creature — I was a favorite of hers —
talked a great deal more to the same effect, and at
last left me to procure a bottle of rum, which,
much to her surprise, for I was no drinker, I re-
quested her to fetch me.

How exquisite it was — what a luxury to be left
alone all to myself ! Punished ! — the woman had
said truly, he must be punished. They, too, must
not escape. The ingratitude of the old man — his
insolence of ingratitude was almost as bad as the
conduct of Steiner. After what I had done for
him ! — an old servant who had indeed served him !
— who had refused a certainty, a respectable sta-
tion in society, perhaps a fortune, for his sake '
And he must escape — he must go unpunished —
he must revel in the consciousness of the impunity
of his insult ? No. I swore that deeply ; and,
lest it should be possible that I could falter, or
perhaps renounce my intention, I confirmed that
oath with another, which I shudder to think of,
and must not here set down.

I emptied the bottle of rum, but I was not drunk.
When I went to bed I was as sober as I am at this
moment. I did not go to bed to sleep. My senses
were in a strange ferment. The roof of my head
seemed to open and shut, and I fancied I could
hear the seething of my brain below. I presently
fell into a kind of stupor.

It was past midnight when I recovered from
this swoon, and I started from the bed to my feet.
Something had been whispering in my ear, and I
listened for a moment in hideous expectation

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

247

that the words — for I did hear words — would he
repeated ; but all was silent. I struck a light,
and after a time became more composed. Even
the furniture of the room was company to me.
Before morning- I had shaped my plan of revenge,
and it was in accordance with the words that had
been spoken to me. Oh, my God ! what weak
creatures we are ! This fantasy possessed me,
pervaded me ; it did not grow — it did not increase
from day to day — it came, and it overcame me.

I returned the next morning to Bromley's house,
and requested to see Steiner. I apologized to him
for the words I had used on the previous day,
and requested to be permitted to remain in my
situation, if Mr. Bromley would consent to it,
until I could turn myself round ; and I hoped, in
the mean time, that what had taken place would
be overlooked and forgotten. Steiner received me
with a kind of civil arrogance, and went to confer
with his partner. They presently returned to-
gether, and my request, after an admonitory lec-
ture, rather confusedly delivered, from Bromley,
was acceded to ; Steiner warning me at the same
time to conduct myself with more humility for the
future, under pain of similar punishment.

I did do so, and for six months nothing could
exceed the attention I paid to business, the zeal I
evinced upon every occasion, the forbearance I ex-
ercised under every provocation. And I had need
of forbearance. Bromley had been entirely per-
verted by his son-in-law ; and the kind old man
of former years was changed into a morose and
almost brutal blackguard — to me — only to me.
Mrs. Steiner had likewise suffered the influence
of her husband to undermine, and, for the time,
to destroy her better feelings ; and she treated me
upon all occasions, not merely with marked cold-
ness, but with positive insult. I need hardly say
that Steiner enjoyed almost to satiety the advan-
tage he had gained over me. Even the very ser-
vants of the house took the cue from their su-
periors, and looked upon me with contempt and
disdain. The little boy alone, who had received
express commands never to speak to me, some-
times found his way into the shop, and as he clung
round my neck, and bestowed unasked kisses upon
my cheek, my hatred of the rest swelled in my
bosom almost to bursting.

The persecution I endured thus long was in-
tense torment to me ; the reader, whoever he may
be, will probably think so. He will be mistaken.
It was a source of inconceivable, of exquisite
pleasure. It was a justification to me ; it almost
made the delay of my vengeance appear sinful.

It was now the 22d of December, 1808. I can-
not refrain from recording the date. Steiner had
been during the last six weeks at Antwerp, and
was expected to return in a day or two. He had
purchased at a sale in that city a great quantity of
pictures, which had just arrived, and were now in
the shop. They were severally of no great value,
but the purchase had brought Bromley's account
at the banker's to a very low ebb. Mrs. Steiner
and the child were going to spend the Christmas

holidays with some relatives residing at Canter-
bury. She passed through the shop silently and
without even noticing me, and hurried the boy
along lest he should wish — and he did make an
effort to do so — to take his farewell of me. It
was evening at the time, and Bromley was in his
back parlor. I was busy in the shop that evening ;
it was business of my own, which I transacted
secretly. Having completed it, I did what was
rather unusual with me ; I opened the door of the
parlor, and bade Bromley good night.

All that evening I hovered about the neighbor-
hood. I had not resolution to go from it. Now
that the time was come when I should be enabled,
in all human probability, to fulfil, to glut my ven-
geance, my heart failed me. The feeling which
had supported me during the last six months,
which had been more necessary to my soul than
daily sustenance to my body, had deserted me then,
but that by a powerful effort I contrived to retain
it. While I deplored having returned to Brom-
ley's employment, and the abject apology I had
made to Steiner, that very step and its conse-
quences made it impossible for me to recede. It
must be. It was my fate to do it, and it was
theirs that it should be done.

What trivial incidents cling to the memory
sometimes, when they are linked by association to
greater events ! I was, I remember, standing at
the door of a small chandler's shop in Dean-street,
almost lost to myself, and to all that was passing
about me.

The woman of the house tapped me on the
shoulder.

" Will you be so good," she said, " as to move
on ; you are preventing my customers from enter-
ing the shop."

"My good woman," I said, "I hope there is
no harm in my standing here V

" Not much," replied the woman, good-humor-
edly. " I hope you have been doing nothing worse
to-day?"

I started, and gazed at the woman earnestly.
She smiled.

" Why, bless the man ! you look quite flurried.
I haven't offended you, I hope?"

" No, no !" I muttered hastily, and moved away.
The agony I endured for the next hour I cannot
describe.

I passed Bromley's house several times from
the hour of nine till half-past. All was silent, all
still. What if my design should not take effect !
I almost hoped that it would not ; and yet the boy
who cleaned out the shop must inevitably discover
it in the morning. I trembled at the contempla-
tion of that, and my limbs were overspread with a
clammy dew. It was too late to make a pretext
of business in the shop at that time of night.
Bromley was at home, and might, nay would, sus-
pect me. I resolved to be on the premises the
first thing in the morning, and retired in a state
of mind to which no subsequent occurrence of
my life was ever capable of reducing me.

It was about half-past eleven o'clock, or nearer

248

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

to twelve, that the landlord of the Green man, in
Oxford-street, entered the parlor where I was sit-
ting, gazing listlessly upon two men who were
playing a game of dominos.

" There is a dreadful fire," said he, " some-
where on the other side of the street ; — in Berwick
or Wardour-street, I think."

I sprang to my feet, and rushed out of the
house, and turning into Hanway-yard, ran down
Tottenham-court road, crossed the fields, (they are
now built upon,) and never stopped till I reached
Pancras church.

As I leaned against the wall of the churchyard
some men came along.

" Don't you see the fire, master1?" said one, as
they passed me.

Then, for the first time, I did see the fire, ting-
ing the clouds with a lurid and dusky red, and at
intervals casting a shower of broken flame into the
air, which expanded itself in wide-spreading scin-
tillations.

God of heaven ! what had I done 1 Why was
I here? I lived in the neighborhood of Bromley's
house, and they would be sending for me. The
landlord, too, would afterwards remember having
seen me in his parlor, and informing me of the fire
in the neighborhood, and I should be discovered.
These thoughts were the duration of a moment,
but they decided me. I ran back again in a frenzy
of remorse and terror, and in a few minutes was in
Wardour-street.

The tumult and confusion were at their height.
The noise of the engines, the outcries of the fire-
men, the uproar of the crowd, faintly shadowed
forth the tumult in my mind at that moment. I
made my way through the dense mass in advance
of me, and at length reached the house.

Bromley had just issued from it, and was wring-
ing his hands, and stamping his naked feet upon
the pavement. He recognized me, and seized me
wildly by the arms.

" Oh ! my good God ! Gibson," said he, " my
child!"

" What child — what child?" cried I, eagerly.

" Mine — mine ! and the infant ! they are in
there!"

" They are gone out of town ; don't you remem-
ber?" I thought the sudden fright had deprived
him of his senses.

" No, no, no ! they were too late, the coach
was gone !"

With a loud scream I dashed the old man from
me, and flew to the door, which was open. I made
my way through the stifling smoke that seemed
almost to block up the passage, and sprang up
stairs. The bed-room door was locked. With a
violent effort I wrenched off the lock, and rushed
into the room.

All was darkness ; but presently a huge tongue
of flame swept the doorway, and, running up the
wall expanded upon the ceiling ; and then I saw
a figure in white darting about the room with an-
gular dodgings like a terrified bird in a cage.

" Where is the child?" I exclaimed, in a voice
of frenzy.

Mrs. Steiner knew me, and ran towards me,
clasping me with both arms. She shook her head
wildly, and pointed she knew not where.

" Here, Gibson — here," cried the child, who
had recognized my voice.

I threw off my coat immediately, and, seizing
the boy, wrapt him closely in it.

"This way, madam — this way; at once, for
Heaven's sake !" and I dragged her to the land-
ing.

There was hell about me then ! The flames,
the smoke, the fire, the howlings ; it was a living
hell ! But there was a shriek at that moment !
Mrs. Steiner had left my side. Gracious heavens !
she had been precipitated below ! A sickness came
upon me then — a sensation of being turned sharp-
ly round by some invisible power ; and, with the
child tightly clasped in my arms, I was thrown
violently forward into the flames, that seemed
howling and yearning to devour me.

CHAPTER III.

When I recall to memory the circumstances of
that terrible night, I wonder that I did not, either
by word or action, betray myself. I do not know
— for I am no adept at the solution of moral ques-
tions— whether men are equally provided by nature
with what is termed conscience ; but I am certain
that there are some who cannot only conceal it, but
suppress it. It was not until many years afterwards
that I was made fully conscious of the enormity of
my crime ; and then conscience came too late, as
it always does.

The child and myself were rescued from the
burning ruins without having sustained any very
serious injury ; but Mrs. Steiner was so frightful-
ly disfigured as to leave small hope of her recovery,
and none of her ever regaining her former appear-
ance. She was conveyed, in a state of insensibil-
ity, to the house of a neighbor, who had offered
Bromley and his family a temporary asylum ; and,
when the fire was at length got under, I returned
to my own lodging with the gratifying conviction
that the chief portion of the most valuable proper-
ty was destroyed.

It is indeed true, that far from feeling any com-
punction for the sin I had committed, I gloried in
its consummation. They who had so often sneered
at my dependent condition, who had made their
superiority of circumstances a ground for the as-
sumption of superiority in all other points — to
have brought them at last to my own level, it was
something. Whilst I confess this, I must, in jus-
tice to myself, mention that I was not at the time
aware of the dangerous condition of Mrs. Steiner,
but concluded that in a few days she would be
restored. I was, at least, willing to believe so.

But when the sense of satisfied vengeance began
to abate, a feeling of considerable anxiety with
regard to myself, and the conduct I ought to pur-
sue, occupied its place. Was it likely — was it

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

249

possible that they would suspect me? there was
no evidence — or rather, was there any ? — that
could convict me. It now occurred to me that I
had not taken all such precautions against detection
as, the act once committed, my fears pointed out as
necessary. And yet, hitherto, I had shown myself
a proficient in the duplicity which they had taught
me to practise. But now, a comfortable reflection
presented itself; I was even man enough to im-
agine that I saw the immediate agency of Prov-
idence in the accident which had prevented Mrs.
Steiner and the child from leaving London on that
evening. The exertions I had made to save them
must furnish, at once, conclusive testimony of my
innocence ; I had nothing to fear from calumny or
malicious conjecture. In that certainty I hugged
myself, and towards daybreak fell into a sound and
refreshing sleep, from which I did not awake un-
til noon.

And yet, notwithstanding the state of compos-
ure to which I had succeeded in bringing myself,
I felt that it would be necessary to attach myself
to Bromley as closely as possible ; lest, during
my absence, his own thoughts, or the whispered
surmises of others, should breed suspicion against
me. I arose, therefore, and proceeded to his tem-
porary lodging.

I found him, as I expected, surrounded by his
neighbors and friends, the majority of whom very
liberally offered the old man such assistance as is
to be extracted from advice. Far from seizing
tne opportunity, when we were alone, of indulg-
ing a vulgar triumph at his expense, I endeavored
to soothe and to console him, to cheer him and to
raise his spirits ; reminding him (I could not for-
bear that one luxury) that there was no situation
in life that honest industry could not render
respectable ; that although this calamity had be-
fallen him, he might yet, late as it was, recover
himself, and eventually raise up for himself kind
and attached friends — as I had done.

I uttered these last words in a sufficiently
marked and emphatic manner ; and yet Bromley
felt them not, or did not appear to heed them.
Indeed, he seemed, as yet, hardly conscious of the
extent of his misfortune ; merely expressing great
anxiety for Steiner's return, as though that event
were the only matter to be thought about. His
manner to me was as cold, distant, and super-
cilious as before. I knew, however, that this
apathy could not last long — that the truth must
soon find its level ; and I was perfectly content to
wait till it did do so.

If I had not, long ago, acquired an ingenuity
in forging palliations and excuses upon my own
heart, I should have been overwhelmed with re-
morse and horror when the dreadful situation of
Mrs. Steiner was made known to me. As it was,
I felt deeply shocked ; but not more so, I endeav-
ored to make myself believe, than I should have
been, had she suffered in other circumstances ; I
was innocent of this — 1 strove to think so ; be-
cause I had not contemplated it. I argued the

case too much with my own mind to have been
right.

However this might be, I was much relieved
to hear, about a month afterwards, that she was
out of danger ; but it was added, she was so
shockingly altered that I should not recognize
her. I was not much concerned at this ; I had
no wish to perpetuate the memory of a face that
had so often looked upon me with undeserved con-
tempt and scorn ; and I had ceased to feel the
slightest interest in the fate of a person who,
owing probably her own life and that of the child
to my exertions, had not even repaid me by the
common gratitude of acknowledgment. But to
return.

During three days that succeeded the fire, I
was almost constantly employed in Bromley's
business ; by which time, a tolerable estimate
was completed of the extent of his misfortune.
The intervals of my leisure were occupied with
the old man ; and many occasions were afforded
me of watching the gradual operation of the truth,
as it silently and surely made its way to his heart.
At first the melancholy state of his daughter was
his chief, if not sole affliction ; next, the absence
of Steiner was deplored ; until, at length, the one
calamity, the irreparable loss, extending over the
future, lay clearly before him. I, too, could see
as clearly that my vengeance had been amply ful-
filled ; and I was satisfied.

Oh ! it was a humiliating spectacle to witness
the abject creature lamenting the downfall of the
base image he had set up, and craving pity on a
plea whose validity he had so often denied. He
was once more to become one of those who " prey
upon the middle classes" — it was his favorite ex-
pression— for he had no longer " a capital ;" some-
thing which, in his opinion, included all the car-
dinal virtues, and religion into the bargain. I
suspect there is a very large sect in this country,
holding the same faith.

I had been too much occupied with Bromley's
affairs, on the fourth day, to call upon him before
the afternoon. As I entered the room, he arose
and met me halfway.

" Gibson," said he hurriedly, and in some ag-
itation, " you had better come again in an hour
or two ; but, stay ; I don't know what to say — "
he paused ; " what is best to be done?"

" What is the matter?" I inquired.

" Mr. Steiner is returned ;" and he pointed to
a door which communicated with an adjoining
chamber.

" Well, sir, I am glad of it, for your sake.
You have been anxious for his return."

Bromley looked perplexed, but presently mo-
tioned me to take a seat. " You may as well
see him at once, perhaps," he remarked.

I bowed. " I shall be very glad to see
him."

At this moment Steiner, who, I think, had
been listening, opened the door, and flinging it
after him, strode into the middle of the room.

250

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

There was a kind of white calmness in his face,
which I knew well how to interpret.

" Well, this is a very pretty piece of business,
indeed is it!" said he ; " what do you think, Mr.
Gibson?"

" It is a very sad one," I answered.

" Have you no conception how it originated?"
he inquired.

" None whatever."

" Do you mean to say," he resumed with
quickness, " that you do not know how the fire
was caused — by what — by whom ?"

"I do."

Steiner took Bromley aside, and began to talk
to him in a low lone. It was a relief to me, his
doing so at that moment. A sudden faintness, a
desertion of the vital powers, had in an instant
reduced me to the helplessness of a child ; I
dreaded the interview which I foresaw was about
to take place. He suspected me, that was cer-
tain ; perhaps had obtained some clue — some wit-
ness against me. I felt that I could not confront
him like an innocent man, I had not even strength
to endeavor to do so.

" Had you not better be seated?" said Steiner,
turning towards me, for I had remained standing
motionless.

Steiner sat for a while absorbed in thought,
with his eyes fixed upon the ground ; but, at
length, I could perceive his glance slowly steal-
ing upward from my feet, until it settled itself
upon my face. I could not bear the immovable
gaze with which he regarded me ; in vain did I
attempt to withdraw my eyes from his ; some hor-
rible fascination constrained me ; I could feel that
there was not a thought of my soul hidden from
him — that my crime was legibly written on my
countenance — and I was almost tempted to shriek
out the confession which was struggling in my
throat.

" As there is a God in heaven !" cried
Steiner, striking his knee with one hand, and
pointing towards me with triumphant malignity,
" that man set fire to the premises. Look at
him!" he added, seizing Bromley by the arm;
" would not that face alone convict him in a court
of justice ?"

Bromley, I think, arose, and laid hold upon
Steiner.

"For Heaven's sake!" said he, "do not be
so violent. You don't know that — we don't
know it yet. Speak, Gibson ; what do you say ?
You shall be heard ; what answer have you to
make to this?"

" None." I made an effort to speak — to say
I know not what — but I could not utter a sylla-
ble. How I got out of the room I cannot re-
member. I must have slunk out, like a beaten
hound.

When I recovered myself, I found that I had
sunk upon a window-seat on the first landing of
the stairs. There was a slight noise above.
Steiner had attempted to follow me, but was pre-
vented by Bromley. My presence of mind re-

turned to me of a sudden, and I sprang from the
seat. Of what unmanly, paltry weakness had I
been guilty ! what cause could they have of sus-
picion ? what right had they to suspect me ?
Yes ; they knew their persecution of me ; they
felt that they had earned this reprisal at my hands
— that I was justified in returning evil for evil.
And they had extorted a tacit confession, at least,
of the justice of their accusation. No — no, I was
not to be over-reached quite so easily ; that must
not be. The blood boiled through my veins, and
pressed upon my brain with a dreadful weight.
I rushed up stairs, and flung open the door.

I cannot describe the feelings that possessed me
at the moment. I had almost brought myself to
the belief that I was an injured man, and yet I
was aware of the necessity of counterfeiting a
violence of resentment which should satisfy my
accusers that I was so. At all events, there was
that in my face, as I slowly approached Steiner,
which appalled him ; for he retreated some paces.
I flung my open hand from me, and seized him by
the collar. I trembled violently, but my words
came clearly and distinctly from me.

" Steiner !" said I, " you have said that I set
fire to the house ; you have accused me of it ;
you shall prove it — I will make you attempt to
prove it !"

Here Bromley rushed between, and besought
me to "exercise more temper." I cast him vio-
lently from me.

" And you," I said, turning towards him —
" you, who in conjunction, leagued with this vil-
lain, have been diligent, have set your poor wits
to work, to make my life, after it has been de-
voted to you a curse to myself; you wish, at
length, to compass my death ; but I shall baffle
you ; I defy you both, as much — I can say no
more — as I despise you."

Steiner, as I said this, released himself from my
grasp, and endeavored to assume a threatening as-
pect, which, however, failed of its intended effect.

" I have accused you, Gibson," said he ; " and
I will prove it."

I smiled scornfully at him. He was perplexed,
and would have appealed to Bromley.

"Did you not see him when I said so?" he
exclaimed.

Bromley made no reply, but raised his hands,
as though unwilling to take further part in the
business.

" Is it not strange," resumed Steiner, address-
ing me, " that the fire should have commenced in
the shop — that it should have made such progress
before it was discovered — that nothing whatever of
value should have been preserved?"

I turned from him and approached Bromley. (

" Tell him," I said calmly, " for you know it,
the lie he has this moment uttered ; your daugh-
ter, and his child, were preserved by me, and at
the hazard of my life ; the thanks you owe me,
you may pay — when you pay your other debts."

Bromley was distressed ; I could see that, but
I was in no humor to bate a jot of the advantage

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

251

I had gained. " You and your accomplice," I
continued, " know where T am to be found ; I
shall be forthcoming, I promise you. Good morn-
ing to you !"

It was now no time for supineness, or fruitless
meditation. I took advantage of the opportunity
they had afforded me, and informed the neighbor-
hood of the accusation they had launched against
me, and of the steps they intended to take. That
was wisely done. Who could believe me guilty
of this act, who was the first to promulgate the
charge ? I suborned a favorable verdict before
my enemies commenced operations.

Steiner was as good as his word. He obtained
a warrant against me, and I was brought before a
magistrate. But what could this avail 1 He had
no evidence ; not the slightest symptom of guilt
was observable upon my face. My worst enemy,
even Steiner himself, could extract — could infer
nothing unfavorable from my manner or demeanor.
I was conscious innocence ; and when I collected-
ly, and with a manifest desire that the circum-
stances should be minutely related, constrained
Bromley to testify to the efforts I had made — the
successful efforts to preserve his daughter and her
child, a murmur of indignant horror at the base-
ness of Steiner and himself pervaded the justice-
room. I was discharged, not only without a
stain upon my character, but with many compli-
ments upon my heroic conduct ; and, as I left the
office, the admiring plaudits of the multitude, and
the yells without with which they assailed my
persecutors, sanctioned the justice of the magis-
trate's decision.

I need hardly say that I went on my way re-
joicing. I had not proceeded far, however, before
Steiner overtook me. He tapped me on the
shoulder ; I was not sorry that he had followed
me ; I was glad of the opportunity of enjoying my
triumph to the full.

" You have escaped," said he, " for the pres-
ent; but you shall not escape me. "We shall
yet," and he shook his fisi in my face — " we
shall yet be too much for you."

How exquisitely I enjoyed the empty menace !
" Steiner," I replied, " do you intend me a per-
sonal outrage? if you do, I'll have you taken
into custody forthwith. Here !" and I beckoned
to some men who were already collected on the
other side of the street.

He was daunted. " I shall not lose sight of
you," he muttered. " I mean what I have said
— I shall see you again !"

"You shall, indeed," I said calmly; "and
that very shortly. You owe me, I recollect, six
months' salary — nearly a hundred pounds ; I hope,
when I call upon you, it will be convenient to you
to pay it."

Steiner had not expected this. He was dumb.
It was an inconvenient circumstance.

" Ho, ho !" I said, with a smile of contempt;
" I have, it seems, escaped your malice, and this
had escaped your memory. You may keep it. I

hope, Steiner, you may live to want it. This
one hope of mine I think likely to be fulfilled "

CHAPTER IV.

When moralists purpose to deter you from
vice, they tell you how insidious it is ; how it
strengthens by encouragement ; how impossible
it is, when it has once taken root, to eradicate it ;
when they desire to reclaim you from it, they say
how easy it is to fulfil a good resolution ; " throw
but a stone, the giant dies ; one conquest gained
makes way for another," &c. Convenient moral-
ists !

Perhaps I was not originally formed of such
stuff as saints are made of; or, perhaps, the deed
I had done, and its results, threw me into a frame
of mind in which vice commends itself most easily
to one's adoption ; for no sooner had I left Brom-
ley and his partner, as I believed, forever, than I
changed my lodging, and, neglecting the opportu-
nities which had been presented to me, surren-
dered myself to a course of the lowest and most
depraved dissipation, until the money I had been
years in saving was expended, and the peremptory
conditions of existence were once more offered to
my acceptance. At this time, the thought of
committing suicide entered my mind ; but, al-
though I did not encourage it, I take no credit for
any religious scruples that withheld me. It is no
less true, that the habitual practice of vice unfits
a man for death, and that it renders him afraid to
die. We all look forward to some amendment of
our condition ; many place their faith in the world
to come, many rely upon their chances in this. I
was one of the latter class.

At length, in the last extremity, I applied to
Mr. Taylor, of whom I have before spoken. He
received me kindly enough, sympathized with my
misfortunes, was indignant at the treatment I had
experienced at the hands of my former masters.
But it is one thing to sue, and another to be
sought. He would by no means renew the flat-
tering offers he had previously made me. " What
a pity it was," he said, " that I had not come to
him immediately I left Bromley." And then, al-
though the accusation against me had so entirely
fallen to the ground, the world was so censorious
— so uncharitable ! In a word, however base the
world might be, I found Mr. Taylor thoroughly a
man of it ; and accordingly, like others who drive
hard bargains, he thought the most likely way of
getting me cheaply, was to depreciate me.

During the two years I remained with Mr.
Taylor, I saw neither Bromley nor Steiner. I
was aware' that they had left the neighborhood
shortly after their parting with me, and I knew that
neither of them had resumed business. I concluded,
therefore, that, having settled their involved af-
fairs, they had proceeded to Germany, where, I
had often heard him say, Steiner had many rich
and influential connections. I endeavored to ex-
clude the remembrance of them ; and had begun
to look back upon the fire as a calamity which,

252

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

morally considered, had probably operated with
salutary efficacy upon all the parties concerned,
except myself. And yet the memory would in-
trude itself upon me sometimes, nor was I able to
dismiss it.

Taylor and myself were mutually disappointed
in each other. I found him a low, grovelling per-
son, who had originally sought to procure my
services, not more to forward his own interest
than to pursue an old enmity between himself and
Bromley, of whom, conceiving that he had secured
a ready listener when I first entered his service,
he was always speaking in terms of bitter hostil-
ity. On the other hand, I believe he had some
reason to complain of me. I had lost all alacrity,
I evinced no zeal for business. It had not only
become irksome to me, but I began to wonder
how I could possibly have taken an interest in it
at any time.

I had been with Taylor two years, -when an
event fell out that changed the whole aspect of my
future life. I was, one evening, reading the
newspaper, when an advertisement caught my eye.
It was to this effect : — " That if any relation of
Luke Adams, of Luton in Bedfordshire, were in
existence, and he would apply to certain solicitors
in Austin Friars, he would hear of something
greatly to his advantage." I remembered in-
stantly, that Adams was my mother's uncle, to
whom she had written, at my father's death, re-
questing some trifling assistance. Not to dwell
upon this part of my narrative ; I waited upon
these gentlemen in the city, and after considerable
delay, and no small difficulty in proving my own
identity, was acknowledged sole heir to his very
considerable property, and I took possession ac-
cordingly.

I do not think that this sudden change of my
condition produced any great moral alteration in
me, whether for better or worse. It must be re-
membered that a man may be virtuous, as the
world goes, at a very cheap rate, but vice is an
expensive luxury ; and to expend money liberally
is of itself considered a species of virtue, espec-
ially by those who receive it. Without any love
of vice for its own sake, or for the sake of any de-
light it afforded, I plunged once more into dissi-
pation, and pursued the same idle and profitless
pleasures with which most men, without other re-
sources than money, are fain to content themselves.
That I was not happy, perhaps I need not say ; I
became more and more conscious every day (I
had not felt it so much when I was poor and com-
pelled to earn my living) of the grievous wrong
I had done to Bromley. Bitterly to repent an
injury inflicted upon another is a torment that
knows no alleviation — that no time v/ill mitigate.
But, although conscious of the wrong, I could not
repent it until reparation was made to me ; that
reparation came at last, and repentance followed,
and misery henceforward abided with me forever.

One day I had taken shelter, under a gateway,
from a heavy shower of rain. I had not been
standing there many minutes, when a woman,
meanly clad, entered hastily, and perceiving me,

started back, and involuntarily pronounced my
name. I should not have remembered the face —
the ravage of that night had made a fearful, a
hideous change — but the voice was familiar to
me.

"Mrs. Steiner!" I exclaimed; but she had
turned from me. The tone in which she had ut-
tered my name was the tone of former years, and
my heart was touched. I approached her.

" Will you not speak to your servant, madam ?"
I said.

" Oh, do not say so, sir," she answered ; "I
am very glad to see you." She trembled ; but
offered me her hand.

There is no sight in nature more pitiable, more
humiliating, than that of self-abased poverty. I
could not witness it unmoved ; I took her hand and
pressed it warmly ; I inquired after Bromley,
whether he was yet living ; and asked if they still
resided with him.

"7 live with him ;" she answered, " Mr. Stei-
ner is not with us at present."

" I should very much wish to see Mr. Bromley
again," I said earnestly.

Her eyes brightened for a moment. "Should
you?" she replied, " but perhaps — " she paused.

" He would not care to see me. Did you
mean that? I know his prejudice against me."

" That, Mr. Gibson, has been long ago dis-
pelled. It would make him happy to see you once
more, before he dies. He has said so often, but
he is ashamed and afraid to meet you."

I prevailed upon her to allow me to conduct her
home. She made many excuses, and at length,
with a faltering voice murmured something about
the meanness of the lodging. Drawing her arm
between mine, we proceeded on our way in
silence, (my heart was too full to speak,) towards
a narrow street in Westminster.

" We live here," she said, with a deprecating
blush, as she knocked at the door of a miserable
dwelling. "If you will wait below for a mo-
ment, I will prepare my father to receive you."

I was shown into a small room, scantily fur-
nished, on the second floor. When I entered,
Bromley came forward to meet me — but very
feebly; and, placing his hand upon my shoulder,
he gazed long and earnestly at me, whilst the
tears rolled down his face.

" And you have come at last to see me, Mr.
Gibson ?" he said tremulously ; " I do not deserve
this kindness from you. Oh boy, I have wronged
you ! — but, listen — that villain ! " he looked
around, but Mrs. Steiner had left the room,
" that villain, Steiner, set us against you — both
of us ; he did — he did !"

I placed the old man in his chair, and sat down
by his side. He was verging upon second child-
hood, but I gathered from him enough to know
that I had been the instrument of ruin, of misery,
of destitution, and of his present helpless and pit-
eous condition. Steiner had long ago abandoned
his wife and child, having converted into money
everything he could lay his hands upon, and they
had neither seen nor heard from him for years.

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

253

I could wish to avoid this part of my confession
— I can hardly bear to think upon it even now-
More awful circumstances do not so disturb me, as
the remembrance of that day. I stayed with them
for some hours. We talked of by-gone days —
my days of happiness — but we spoke of them
sadly, mournfully, and with regret. At length I
informed them of my unexpected possession of a
fortune, and abruptly — for I could do it in no other
way — expressed my determination of providing for
Bromley and his daughter, and of taking the child,
who was now a fine grown boy, under my pro-
tection.

I can never recall to memory, without agony,
the old man, as he tottered from the room, chuck-
ling as he went, to tell the woman of the house,
below, that he was made a man again, and that
Gibson had brought him back his property ; and
I groaned in very anguish when Mrs. Steiner fell
at my feet, bathing my hand with her tears, and
called upon the child to kneel before me, and bless
their benefactor. They could not have devised a
more dreadful vengeance upon me.

I, too, when I returned home on that night,
went upon my knees, not for forgiveness of my
crime, but that He would direct me how to atone
for it in this world. And I arose, perhaps, a
better, if not a happier man.

Peace is, however, preferable to happiness ; if
it be not in its best sense the same thing, and if an
exemption from external influences may be called
peace, I enjoyed it for six years after my inter-
view with Bromley and his daughter.

What I had promised to do for them was done,
and done promptly. I settled an annuity upon
them, which was continued to Mrs. Steiner after
the death of her father, and I sent the boy to a
boarding-school in the vicinity of London, intend-
ing to realize for him the prospects which had
been designed for me by my early protector, Mr.
Ward.

The world finds it very difficult in many cases
to draw the line, and in some even to distinguish,
between crime and misfortune. I am about to
enter upon a circumstance in my life which chiefly
partakes of the latter. I cannot bring myself to
think otherwise. But it will be necessary to state
in a few words how matters stood when this cir-
cumstance occurred.

I had been living for the space of six years a
secluded and an inoffensive life. I occupied a
small detached house at Chelsea, and resided
alone ; the woman who attended upon me coming
every morning, and returning to her own home at
night. The boy spent the chief portion of his
holidays with me ; but at other times, with the
exception of an occasional visit to and from Mrs.
Steiner, I neither went to see nor received into my
house any human being. I had no friends.

My early attachment for the boy had been re-
newed, and he returned my affection. He was
now thirteen years of age ; and, at the time of
which I am about to speak, at school.

CHAPTER V.

I had been expecting a letter from Mrs. Steiner,
which she had promised to send me in the even-
ing. Tt was a letter for her son, to which I
wished to add a few lines. It was growing late ;
my servant had left me, and I was about to retire
to bed, when a knock summoned me to the door.
Late as it was, I concluded that some person had
brought the letter. On opening the door a tall,
muscular man, with a fur cap on his head, and
enveloped in a rough great-coat, stood before me.

" Is Mr. Gibson within ?" he inquired.

"He is ; my name is Gibson."

" You don't remember me, I perceive," said
the man.

" I do not."

"Ay!" he continued, "times are changed
since we last met ; with you for the better ; for
the worse with me. My name is Steiner."

I stept back in astonishment.

"You won't know me now, I suppose ?" re-
sumed Steiner, " and I believe you have no reason
to care much about me ; but I have suffered mis-
fortunes since then."

This was spoken in a tone of humility, which
almost affected me.

" Nay, Steiner," said I, " I have long ago
forgotten and forgiven the past."

"Have you?" he replied quickly. "Mr.
Gibson, you have a good heart, and I always
thought so ; though I did n't always act as if I
thought so. But, won't you let me step rn? I
have a favor to beg of you, and I won't detain you
long."

I led the way into the parlor, and he sat dowTi.
As he took off his cap, and threw back his great-
coat, I at once recognized my old enemy. Time
had contributed his usual share to the alteration I
detected in him ; but sordid wants, and recourse
to miserable shifts and expedients, will breed care,
even in the most callous bosoms ; and its effects
were observable upon his face. He looked ill,
also, and exhausted.

"Will you not take some refreshment?" I
said ; " you appear faint."

" I am so," he replied. " You are very kind.
I will take something. I have not touched a
morsel to-day."

I went down stairs, and procured what the pan-
try contained ; which I laid before him.

" You had better take some wine," I said,
placing it upon the table.

I watched him in silence as he despatched his
meal, wondering inwardly how he had obtained a
clue to my place of abode, and what request he
was about to make to me. He thrust the tray
from him, and helped himself to a glass of wine,
which was presently followed by another.

" You seem to have a pleasant place here,
Gibson," he said. " Well, this is a strange
world ! Who could have supposed, fifteen years
ago, that you and I would have been situated as
we are now ; — but you don't drink."

254

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

" Certainly, I should
I see you have some

I took a glass of wine. " It has pleased for-
tune to bestow her favors upon me," said I, " but,
after all, fortune "

" Ah ! well ; I 'm glad of it !" he cried, inter-
rupting me. " I 'm glad of it ; you deserve it.
Here 's your health, old boy !"

I was somewhat startled at this sudden famili-
arity. I had never admired Steiner in his gayer
mood, especially when it had been induced by
drink. I knew it of old as the prelude to an ebulli-
tion of a totally opposite nature.

" Will you let me know how I can be of ser-
vice to you, Mr. Steiner?" I said abruptly, " it
is growing late."

" So late ? not so very late !" returned Steiner.
" Why, the truth is, I am poor, very poor, and I
want money."

" You are in want, you say ? Well, I can,
perhaps "

" Perhaps !" said he.
think. Come, more wine
on the side-board."

" Another glass," I answered, producing with
reluctance a second bottle, " and we part. Do
you mean to say, sir, you are in positive dis-
tress?"

" I do," he returned ; " I have nothing left in
the world — nothing ! Yes, this. Do you re-
member it?" and he produced from his pocket a
dagger, the sheath of which was curiously chased,
and which had ornamented Bromley's shop from
my earliest remembrance. " I have kept it by me
for years," he continued, " in case it might be
wanted." He threw it upon the table, and seized
the decanter.

I could see in his eye, at that moment, the man
I had lost sight of for years ; the man who had
threatened me when I last saw him. But I had
no wish to quarrel with him.

" Have you seen Mrs. Steiner since your return
to England?" I inquired.

" No. I have not seen Mrs. Steiner since my
return to England," said he. " I called at my
former lodgings, and they informed me of every-
thing. They told me where I might find you,
and I preferred calling upon you first."

" Well, Steiner," said I, rising, " I am sorry
to hasten you, but it grows very late."

"Ha! ha!" cried he, not heeding me; "I
hear you have done something for the boy, and
provided for Louisa. Well, it 's generous of you ;
I will say that. She's altered, eh? not quite so
handsome ? But you always liked her, you dog !
I knew that."

I sat down in utter and mute surprise at the
man's baseness.

" And old Bromley 's gone, too," he resumed.
" Well, we must all go ! The law of nature
they call it."

" I must beg you to defer your business till to-
morrow morning," said I in disgust. " I will
not be kept up any longer !"

" No, no," returned he, decisively ; "I can't
do that. If Bromley could have deferred his

!" cried Steiner,
of the dagger.

death till to-morrow he would have done so, I
dare say; but he couldn't. I can't defer my
business !"

" What do you want?" cried I, peremptorily.

" Money !" answered Steiner. " Come, Gib-
son, I know you 're a good-natured fellow. I wrant
a hundred pounds."

"A hundred pounds!" and I drew back in
surprise.

" No nonsense, my gentleman
tapping the table with the hilt
" You know, and I know that you set fire to that
house in Wardour-street. You ruined us. You
reduced us to beggary. I must have this money !
— I must — must ! "

The old feeling entered into me which I had
years ago encouraged, and by whose power 1 had
successfully wrought out my vengeance.

" Must !" said I, " must, Mr. Steiner? that is
a word I never obeyed in my life !"

" Time you began !" said Steiner with a sneer.
" Come, Gibson, you are no match for me ; you
know it. You tried me once, and you were want-
ing. You are alone in the house. I have you
in my power !"

" What do you mean?" said I, but I was not
alarmed. " What do you purpose ?"

" This !" cried he, and he unsheathed the
dagger.

" Your life," said I, promptly, " your life,
Steiner, will answer it!"

" What is it to me?" he returned. "What
is yours to you is the question ! Will you let me
have the money ?"

"No!"

"You will not?"

"No!" I thundered. "Steiner, I shall sell
my life dearly ! Never shall a beast like your-
self extort money from me by force — by intimida-
tion !"

I said more, but I know not what ; and grappled
with him. He was a powerful man, but had be-
come enervated by excess. I learnt that after-
wards. And the wine he had taken, although it
had stimulated his brutal nature, had deprived him
of that advantage which is derived from quickness
of eye and directness of aim. I, too, had grown
stronger since we were last opposed to each other.

He had wounded me in the arm before I closed
with him, and wrested the dagger from his hand.
The struggle was then short, compressed, and
deadly. We fell to the earth together. Steiner's
hold upon me seemed to relax — a faintness over-
came me — the room appeared to go round rapidly
— and I sank into insensibility.

When I recovered my senses, and arose — which
I did with difficulty, I found the candles burnt out,
and the daylight streaming through the shutters.
Why was I here? What had happened? It was
a hideous dream ! I made an effort to approach
the window, but I stumbled over something on
the floor. It was Steiner — the lifeless body — the
corpse of Steiner ! I had killed him ! His neck-
cloth told me that I had strangled him !

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

255

To some natures human, perhaps I should say
physical, considerations are the first that, in cases
of emergency, present themselves. My nature
was of this kind. What had I done? I had
killed a man in self-defence — one who would
have plundered, and who had attempted to murder
me. It was justifiable homicide. Who, under the
circumstances, could have acted otherwise ? Be-
sides, the spectacle before me could not now un-
nerve me. The excitement of the recent struggle
between us had not altogether subsided, and I had
suffered so much for years past from another event,
which Steiner himself had forced upon me, that I
would not permit myself to be overwhelmed by
this accident. I felt also my hatred of Steiner
had only lain dormant thus long ; that his mur-
derous assault upon me on the previous night had
quickened, had revived, and, if possible, had
strengthened it ; and I felt, ay, even as I gazed
upon the lifeless body, that no time, no years
passed in this world could obliterate or destroy
it. I now bethought me what course was to
be pursued. I must rescue myself from the
imputation that might lie against me of having
murdered Steiner ; I must do more — I must es-
tablish the charge against the deceased, and hold
up his name and his memory to execration and
ignominy. No thought of Mrs. Steiner or of the
boy obtruded itself upon me at the moment, or if
it did I rejected it. Justice must be done ; I had
always loved justice — I had practised it hitherto,
and they had felt it.

Thus resolved, 1 had sat myself down in a
chair, and awaited, not calmly but callously, the
arrival of the old woman who attended upon me,
and who came regularly at seven o'clock. The
pain in my arm was great, but that I heeded not ;
on the contrary, it supplied me with a motive for
suppressing any regret I might be weak enough
to feel (but there was little danger of that) in
consequence of what had occurred.

A sudden thought flashed through my brain.
Why was I seated inactive, when prudence
pointed out the expediency of alarming the neigh-
borhood ? As it was, I had tarried too long.
Every moment of further delay would materially
alter the complexion of the case, as it would pre-
sent itself to indifferent witnesses. Would they
indeed believe the story I had to relate ? I turned
faint and sick when that doubt proposed itself to
me. The seclusion in which I had lived was cal-
culated to increase suspicion against me, which
doubtless had been long engendered, and Steiner's
vengeance would at length be fulfilled.

Were these fears reasonable ? I think not ;
and yet having once, and in an evil moment, en-
tertained them, they grew upon me, and alto-
gether paralyzed my faculties. I felt intensely
the necessity of immediate action, but was utterly
deprived of the power to act.

Hardly conscious of the motive that prompted
me, I drew the body of Steiner into the back-
room, and covering it with a cloak, thrust it
under a sofa, before which I placed some chairs,

and returning to the parlor, I set the furniture
hastily in its accustomed order, and retired to my
chamber, where I dressed the wound in my arm,
washed myself, and endeavored to counterfeit a
calmness which, at any rate, might impose upon
my servant.

It was now too late to recede. To decide upon
any course of action in trying circumstances is a
relief; and the weakness of yielding to imagina-
ry fears, and the difficulty and danger of conceal-
ing from the wrorld all knowledge of this unfortu-
nate occurrence, were for a time forgotten. They
were too soon impressed upon me, and in a man-
ner I had not foreseen, and could not now avert.

A knock at the door summoned me down stairs.
As I proceeded along the passage, I thought I
could distinguish the tones of two voices in con-
versation. I listened, transfixed to the spot with
the hideous conviction that they — who, I knew
not — were come to search the house in quest of
the body which I had concealed, and which, there-
fore— for that inference must be invincible — I had
murdered. It was a moment of agonizing sus-
pense ; but the voices had ceased, the knock was
renewed, and I knew k to be that of my attendant.

My agitation must have been but too visible
when, on opening the door I beheld Mrs. Steiner.

" The lady wishes to speak to you, sir," said
the old woman, entering.

I motioned her to retire to the kitchen, and
turned in silent perplexity towards Mrs. Steiner.

" Good heavens ! Mr. Gibson," she exclaimed,
" how dreadfully pale you look ! What is the
matter ?"

I might have remarked the same of her also ;
but I had no power to speak.

" You do not answer," she resumed. " Oh
God ! it is — it must be as I suspected !"

" What — what do you suspect?" I dared not
look upon her, but retired in confusion into the
parlor. She followed me, and sunk upon a chair.

There was a vagueness, almost a wrildness in
her eye, as she glanced hurriedly around the
room, which disconcerted me not a little. She
looked as though she had expected to see some
person whom she feared to meet.

" You have nobody in the house, Mr. Gibson?"
she inquired in a half whisper, pointing to the
door of the back-room.

" Nobody but my servant who entered with
you," I replied, the blood rushing violently to
my face. " You have brought the letter, madam,
I suppose, for Frederick?"

"Frederick!" — she gazed upon me listlessly
— " Oh yes, I have. My God ! what weakness
is this !" and she pressed her hand upon her fore-
head. " Here it is — I hardly know what I have
written." She drew it from her reticule and
handed it to me.

" Oh, Mr. Gibson," she resumed, as I sat, my
eyes bent vacantly on the superscription, " I have
been so alarmed."

" Indeed ! What has alarmed you, Mrs
Steiner ?" The letter dropt from my hand.

256

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

" He has been here — your looks tell me so !"
she exclaimed. " My husband — Steiner has been
here!"

I arose suddenly — " No — no — he has not been
here ; I have not seen him, as Heaven is my wit-
ness. Why should you think so?"

This assurance appeared to relieve her.

" He called yesterday at my former lodging,"
she continued ; " the woman saw him and would
not tell him where I resided."

" Compose yourself," I said ; "he will not be
able to discover your lodging — I am sure he will
not. What motive," I added, "can induce him
to seek me?"

"Oh, sir!" she replied, "he inquired your
address of the woman, and she told him."

" He will not venture to see me, depend upon
it," I said hastily. " Be calm, I beseech you,
and go home now ; you have nothing to fear from
him."

Mrs. Steiner, while I was speaking, sat with
her hands clasped, and her eyes raised to mine.
She burst into tears when I had concluded.

" Mr. Gibson," she exclaimed, " you will
think me a foolish, weak woman, but I hardly
dare go home. I know I shall hear something —
I am certain of it — it is horrible to think of ! I
had such a dream last night !"

" My dear madam," said I, interrupting her,
" this is indeed weakness. Are you the slave of
empty and unmeaning dreams?"

"Ha!" she cried, starting from the chair,
" somebody is coming to the door ! — I hear his
tap outside !" and she listened with an appearance
of intense anxiety that almost equalled my own.

It was a double knock at the door. Who could
it be ? A short interval of fearful suspense suc-
ceeded.

" A Mr. Hartwell wishes to see you, sir,"
said the servant, entering the room.

An exclamation of terror was about to burst
from the lips of Mrs. Steiner, but she checked it.
She flew towards me, and held me by the arm.

" Who is this man, Hartwell?" I said, " I
do not know him. Tell me, do you know him ?"

She motioned me to close the door. " He was
the friend — no, no — the companion of Mr. Stei-
ner, and brought us to misery. It was he who
Led Frederick into vices that — oh, sir ! I must
not see him for the world ! Where shall I con-
ceal myself? Oh, yes ! in here."

" Not there ! — not there !" I exclaimed, seiz-
ing her hand as she was about to open the door
of the back-room. " Tell the gentleman," I
turned to the servant, " that I will see him di-
rectly."

" I would not he should see me here for the
world," she cried. " Oh ! Mr. Gibson, you must
permit me — "

I had no strength to struggle with her. The
door was opened.

" Sit there," I whispered, pointing to a chair.
" Do not stir- — promise me, swear you will not
stir."

"My God! how strange! — my dream last
night! — so like this — it was this!"

I fled into the parlor at these words, and threw
myself into a chair. In a moment more a tall
man, of genteel appearance, walked into the room.

" I beg pardon for the liberty I have taken,
sir," said he ; " my name is Hartwell. I fear I
find you extremely unwell."

" I am so," I answered faintly, as I motioned
him to take a seat. " What may be your business
with me, Mr. Hartwell ?"

" Why, sir," said he, " my friend, Steiner,
called upon you last night."

" No, no, he did not," I exclaimed hastily.

Hartwell smiled, and shook his head. " Par-
don me, my dear sir," he returned blandly, " I
am certain that he did, because I accompanied
him to the door."

" Hush ! hush ! do not speak so loud," and I
arose from my seat ; "I have an invalid in the
next room. I thought," I added hesitatingly —
(I wonder even now at the presence of mind
which enabled me to hit upon that) — " I thought
perhaps — for all Mr. Steiner's acquaintances are
not friends — that he might not wish you to know
that he had been here."

" Oh, Lord bless you, no," said Hartwell ;
" we are very good friends, I assure you. He
promised to call upon me after he had seen you,
and I am surprised he should not have kept his
word with me. Pray, Mr. Gibson, when did he
leave you ?"

"Leave me!" — I started — "oh, about two
hours ago."

"Very strange!" cried Hartwell; "he was
to sail for Hamburg this morning."

" He is gone, then, no doubt !" This propi-
tious intimation, unexpected as it was, eased me
beyond expression. Hartwell, however, seemed
greatly perplexed.

" I cannot think he would deceive me," he
said at length. " Will you allow me to inquire,
sir, whether Mr. Steiner had reason to be satis-
fied with the result of his visit to you ?"

" I do not understand — "

" He came to borrow money, I think." he con-
tinued ; " did he succeed, Mr. Gibson ?"

"He did."

" D the fellow ! it 's so like him. And

yet," — he mused — " I cannot but believe I shall
see him yet. Good morning, Mr. Gibson ; I am
sorry to have troubled you."

I know not how I bore my part in the forego-
ing conversation ; not with much address or self-
possession, I suspect ; for I detected Hartwell
gazing at me with seeming surprise upon one or
two occasions. I thanked God when he was well
gone. It was not likely I should see him again.
Steiner had sailed for Hamburg ; he would con-
clude so, and I should hear no more of him.

Nothing now remained but to dismiss Mrs.
Steiner as speedily as possible, and afterwards to
dispose of the body so secretly that it should never
see the light. It would be well to treat Mrs.

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

257

Steiner's vague apprehensions with levity, lest at
some future time, hearing no tidings of her hus-
band, she might be led to couple, and perhaps to
connect, my extreme confusion of manner with the
date of Steiner's expected appearance in London,
and to infer thence, and speedily to conclude, that
I was in some measure the cause of his absence.
She never would have suspected me of having
murdered him, I felt assured of that ; and this
conviction sufficed to fortify me against the short
scene that was, as I believed, about to ensue be-
tween us.

I had opened the door softly. Oh God ! what
a spectacle encountered me when I was about to
enter the room. She had removed the chairs from
before the sofa, and was at that moment kneeling,
or rather crouching, on the ground. Leaning for-
ward, supported on one hand, every limb of her
body quivering with the agony of prophetic fear,
her other hand was stretched forward, and was
about to grasp the cloak that concealed the remains
of her husband. Ha ! she had already laid hold
upon it ere I could rush forward to prevent her.

I grasped her shoulder with the fury, with the
strength of a wild beast. She flung herself back-
ward, drawing the cloak with her, towards her.
The body — the face had been seen !

It was not a scream — a shriek — I shall never
hear its like again in this world. The echo of it
— the imitation, if such could be — of that dread-
ful appeal, or imprecation, would make a mad-
man of me now. Its remembrance shuts out hope
from me forever.

And yet the instinct of self-preservation was
then present to me. I threw the cloak once more
over the body, replaced the chairs, and raising the
senseless form from the floor, carried it into the
parlor before the servant, who had been alarmed
by the outcry, could make her appearance. The
old woman speedily busied herself in applying
those common remedies which are always at hand,
but which are not always efficacious ; nor were
they in this instance.

" I will carry her to my own room," said I ;
" she will get better presently, I dare say."

" What is the matter with the lady?" inquired
the woman. " Is she often so ?"

" She is mad," said I, impressively. " Mrs.
Watkins, mark me, she is mad. You must not
heed what, she says. She will perhaps rave, and
utter strange things ; you must pay no attention
to them."

So saying, I took Mrs. Steiner in my arms,
and, followed by the woman, conveyed her to my
chamber.

" Had not the doctor better be sent for?" sug-
gested the woman ; " she still remains insen-
sible."

"No; no occasion for one at present," I re-
plied ; " she is thus sometimes for hours. Do
not leave her side, and when she comes to herself
call me."

I retreated down stairs. What I suffered on
that day it is past imagination to conceive ; a sec-

CCLXXIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 17

ond endurance of it no human being could with-
stand. I took no sustenance, but remained closed
in, in frightful companionship with the body. To
wring the hands, to tear the hair, to beat the bosom,
were no employments of mine. I felt no remorse ;
I was not even sorry for what I had done, or for
what it had led to ; it was sheer, absolute, simple
fear. The dread of detection — of conviction — of an
ignominious death — it was this, and this alone.

In the afternoon Mrs. Watkins suddenly came
to me, and beckoned me to follow her. I did so.
She led the way to the chamber. Mrs. Steiner
lay on the bed ; her eyes were open now, but mo-
tionless ; and her hands at intervals were convul-
sively clenched. I observed her in awe-stricken
silence for some time.

" Has she spoken yet?" I inquired.

" No ; she will never speak again," replied the
woman. " It does n't signify, Mr. Gibson, a doctor
must be sent for ; I will not permit the poor lady
to die without assistance."

I knew not what I said. " To die without as-
sistance ! — ha ! ha ! Doctors are good assistants
to death. No — no doctors."

" Shameful !" cried the woman; "you don't
know what you 're talking about. For Heaven's
sake, sir, call in Mr. Greaves ! Go for him, dear
Mr. Gibson, instantly."

"/go for him !" I thought of the body below.
" She cannot speak?" The woman shook her
head. " Go, then, for Greaves ; tell him to come
instantly."

" I cannot leave the lady — I ought not, sir,"
she said, in a tone of remonstrance.

"You must," I exclaimed; "I myself will
watch her while you are gone. Be quick — lose
not a moment."

Mrs. Watkins retired in apparent dissatisfac-
tion, but returned shortly with the doctor. He
examined her with deep attention and concern for
a considerable period. Turning to me at length,
he said,

" Good God ! sir, your servant tells me that
the lady has been in this state since an early hour
this morning, and that you have repeatedly re-
sisted calling in a professional man."

" I did not think, sir — "

" You must be mad, not to think."

" I am not mad, sir," said I, doggedly.

"Pshaw!" cried Greaves, again returning to
the bed, " if she had been bled instantly, she might
have been saved," he continued ; " but it is useless
now."

Greaves now began to interrogate me closely as
to any cause or supposed cause of Mrs. Steiner's
present state. I could not satisfy him. I had
only to say that she had called upon me early on
that morning, and that she told me she had been
much agitated by hearing that her husband had re-
turned to England, and was now in London. I
added, that she had reason to dread any further
connection with him.

The doctor heard me with evident distrust.
" This can hardly account, sir," he said, " for the

258

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

state in which I find her. Some sudden shock —
some frightful communication — "

" Which," said I, interrupting him, " I did not
make."

"Well, sir," he returned, "where are her
friends? They have been sent for, of course?"

" She has none — that I am aware of."

" Good God ! sir, you are a very strange per-
son," cried Greaves, in disgust. " where does
she live?"

I satisfied him.

"Now," he continued, "couldn't you easily
put on your hat, and tell the good woman of the
house to come hither? She perhaps knows more
of her friends than you appear to do, or seem dis-
posed to acknowledge."

Greaves uttered the last few words with an
emphasis that left me in little doubt as to the con-
struction it was intended I should put upon them.
It was necessary that I should cut short this con-
versation, which I felt, if prolonged, was likely to
involve me still deeper in suspicion.

"Mr. Greaves," said I. with a composure for
which the doctor was not prepared, and which
even surprised myself, forming, as it did, so per-
fect a contrast to my former restlessness and per-
turbation :

" Mr. Greaves, this lady is, and has been for
some years, under my protection. Her only son
is also under my care, and is being educated at
my expense. I owe it to him, to her, and to my-
self, not to leave her for one moment on so crit-
ical an occasion as the present. If I have done
wrong in not applying to you before, I am sorry
for it ; ascribe it to excess of anxiety on my part,
and you will be right in so doing. My servant
shall go for the woman of the house at which she
resides."

I wrote the address on a card, and gave it to
Mrs. Watkins.

" My character will bear investigation, sir," I
resumed, when the woman had left the room.
" I am known, and where I am known I am re-
spected."

Greaves was deeply impressed, not more by
what I had said than by my manner of saying it.

" I see now," he said ; " I beg pardon if I am
wrong in my conjecture why this unhappy lady
should dread the sight of her husband — "

I started and turned pale. " The sight of her
husband, sir?"

" I did not mean to offend, " said Greaves kind-

ly.

"Ah !" said I, " I see what you mean now."
I was willing he should continue in that error.

The doctor shortly left me to prepare something
for his patient, which, however, he frankly told
me he did not expect would be of much avail,
promising to call again at night.

It was now nearly dark ; my servant could not
return in less than an hour ; no time was to be
lost. I descended into the garden, and, digging
a grave in a remote corner, silently committed
Steiner's remains to the ground. It was a part

of the garden never frequented ; and I contrived
so to overlay it with old lumber and broken gar-
den-chairs which were strown about in its vicinity,
that nobody could have perceived that any recent
labor had been performed there.

Mrs. Steiner died on that night, silently, with-
out the utterance of a word. Not a glance revealed
to me what she had seen, and what had killed her.
I was safe, therefore — safe — that one assurance
possessed me.

In the solitude of my own chamber, and on my
knees, I thanked Heaven for that. I could not
then think on the fearful and mysterious accident
which had deprived me of my only friend in the
world. The sole depositary of a secret, whose
utterance would destroy me, had been taken hence,
and I was once more secure. Could it be sup-
posed that any joy could be extracted from such
circumstances, then I did rejoice that she was no
more.

CHAPTER VII.

If I have dwelt upon no event of my life since I
had occasion to mention Steiner, that has not in
some measure referred to or been controlled by
him, it is because there was not one worthy even
of the name of incident which he did not directly
or obliquely influence. Oh ! that I had left Brom-
ley's service when Steiner first entered into part-
nership with him ! How different my life must,
how happy it might, have been.

It was shortly after the funeral of Mrs. Steiner
that I began to hear that whispers were rife in the
neighborhood respecting me. These surmises —
set afloat, doubtless by my servant — bore exclusive
reference to Mrs. Steiner, and to my supposed
treatment of her ; some even going so far as to
hint their belief that she had not come by her
death fairly. Hartwell also had called upon me
several times pending Mrs. Steiner's funeral ; and
was, and with reason, much surprised and shocked
to hear of her sudden death under such circum-
stances as I chose to detail to him. He was, if
possible, still more surprised to have heard noth-
ing of Steiner ; but, as he hinted no suspicion that
affected myself; — as, indeed, he expressed none at
the time — and as, moreover, he perfectly well
knew the character and habits of his friend, I did
not seek to conceal that he had attempted to ex-
tort money from me by threats. I added, how-
ever, that being alone and unarmed, I had been
constrained to give him the money he required ;
and I expressed my opinion — an opinion in which
Hartwell concurred — that he had set sail for Ham-
burgh early in the morning, and that we should
probably never see him again.

There was a serenity, united with perfect ease,
in the manners of Hartwell, that indicated an in-
timate acquaintance with good society. It is true
I knew little of the man, except from the hasty
and confused report of Mrs. Steiner ; an account
which, coupled with the fact of his friendship for
her husband, was not likely to predispose me much
in his favor. But I knew well, at the same time,

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

259

that he was the only man living whose suspicions,
once excited and concentrated upon me, could
bring my conduct and character in question. I
was in no situation — in no mind likewise — to as-
sist myself at present ; he was, or appeared to be,
perfectly satisfied with the explanations I had
offered ; and as he had called upon me often, and
unasked on my part, and gradually dropt the name
of Steiner altogether, I suffered at first, but soon
began to countenance, his visits.

In the mean while it became necessary, for more
reasons than one, that I should change my res-
idence. Two years had now elapsed since the
death of Mrs. Steiner. The surmises in the neigh-
borhood had subsided; the whispers — if there were
any— —did not reach my ears ; but, whenever I
walked abroad there was a timid scrutiny of my
person on the part of some, and an audacious in-
tentness of gaze from others, that rendered my
residence at this place for any longer period incon-
venient and irksome. I cannot say that I felt
very acutely these indications — for a man who
lives out of the world can easily dispense with its
good opinion ; my private belief being, that, were
not such good opinion indispensable to an individ-
ual's advancement and pleasure in life, he would
be little disposed to regard it for its own sake.

My chief reason was one with which the world
had nothing to do. It was not when I walked
abroad, but at home — in the quietness and solitude
of the house — in the silence of my own memory,
and at the mercy of the harrowing scene it con-
jured up — it was then that I felt, if life and reason
were longer to coexist, I must abandon, fly from
the accursed place forever. Such expiation as
horror could afford had been paid long ago ; and
it was time that the past should be unremembered,
if not forgotten.

There was yet another motive. It was a dreary
abode for the boy, young Frederick Steiner, when
he came home for the holidays. He was now with
me ; and during his stay I had been laying out
plans for his future life in accordance with his own
wishes — for I passionately loved the boy. My
affection for this lad, which he had returned with
all the warmth and freshness of a young and gen-
erous nature, was one of the inexplicable mysteries
of my life. I had no cause to love him, save for
his own sake ; and there were reasons why I should
both hate and fear him ; and yet, strange to say,
my remembrance of Steiner, as his father, trans-
ferred no bitterness to him ; or, was it that his
mother's memory assuaged, destroyed it ? I know
not. And yet — but it will be told in good time.
But little intervenes.

Frederick had expressed a strong desire to enter
the army — a destination for him to which I was
at first much opposed, until at length I was won
over by his importunities. I had let the house,
and was about to remove to a house in Berner's
street on the next day, at which time my nephew
— for so I called him — was to depart for the mil-
itary college at Addiscombe.

Hartwell was dining with me on that day. I

introduced the boy to him. He received him with
great kindness ; partly, perhaps, out of friendship
for his late father, partly out of complaisance to
myself.

"No very perceptible likeness, I think?" he
observed.

" To his father, none."

" I had not the pleasure of knowing Mrs.
Steiner."

" Oh, no. I remember you had not." I should
not have mentioned this trivial talk, but that it was
adverted to afterwards.

After dinner Hartwell proposed that we should
take our wine in the garden. We retired thither.

"After all," said he, casting his eyes around,
" although you are, I dare say, quite right in leav-
ing this house of yours, what a pleasant place
might be made of it. It is just the thing for a re-
spectable family."

"A family has taken it," I remarked.

" For instance," pursued Hartwell, " you have
let the garden run to waste sadly. You 're not
much of a florist, Gibson. Look there, at that
disgraceful hole in the corner," and he pointed to
the spot where I had buried Steiner ; " that '11 be
dug up, and replanted in less than a month, I'll
be sworn. What say you, Master Frederick?"
and he turned to the boy ; " shouldn't you like to
have a hand in it?"

" Indeed I should," said the boy. " What ails
you, uncle? you look ill."

" The air is chilly ; the wine has not agreed
with me!" I stammered. " Let us go in."

How incredible it seems to me now, that I
should never have thought of that. I almost felt
grateful to Hartwell that he had unwittingly re-
minded me of it. It seemed as though some
special Providence interfered in my behalf, and
would not suffer me to meet detection. Suffice it
to say, I effectually removed — a frightful employ-
ment ! — all that could betray me.

I must now pass over several years, merely
touching upon one or two points, the omission of
which would render this portion of my narrative
unintelligible.

Frederick Steiner returned from India at the
conclusion of the Burmese war, on a leave of ab-
sence for three years. He was grown a very fine
young man, of impetuous temper, but of warm
affections, and with a noble heart. During the
period of his absence I had mixed much in society
of a certain class — of that class into which a man
is almost necessarily thrown who can find no pleas-
ure in domestic life. An intimacy — it cannot be
termed friendship — had subsisted all along between
Hartwell and myself, founded upon, and cemented
by, the similarity of our tastes and habits. Among
other vices he had imbued me with a passion for
gaming — a passion which, like that of love, is
often stimulated rather than destroyed by ill-suc-
cess. I was now in comparatively reduced cir-
cumstances ; but I had done nothing hitherto to
impair my credit, or to compromise my character.
Sometimes, indeed, desperate with my bad fortune,

260

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

I would unadvisedly throw out strange things,
which were forgotten the next day by myself; but
which, it would seem, had deeply impressed them-
selves upon Hartwell. They were nothing more
than denunciations of human nature in the mass,
and doubts as to the wisdom of permitting one's-self
to be trammelled by moral obligations — phrases
which, I doubt not, every losing gamester relieves
himself by uttering.

On Frederick's arrival in England, Hartwell
attached himself to him with a closeness almost
amounting to pertinacity. He had formerly been
in the army ; had seen a great deal of the world
in all its various and shifting forms ; his manners
were prepossessing ; and his conversation just
such as easiest recommends itself to the attention
of a young man of spirit and feeling, being free,
without grossness; sometimes, although not often,
grave, and never dull. I never could exactly ac-
count for the great pains Hartwell was at to se-
cure this young man's friendship. He could not
hope to gain much money from him ; indeed, he
never attempted it ; could it be that he was the
son of his former friend? No. Hartwell had
himself often confessed to me that his intimacy
with Steiner had been held together merely by a
community of interest.

Be this as it may, I hardly wonder that Fred-
erick should have preferred Hart well's company
to mine. There was little in me to attract to my-
self the time of a vivacious young man, whose
sole pursuit was pleasure ; and I had too much affec-
tion for him to wish to do so. I had, besides, so
full a belief of his affection for me, that the notion
of Hartwell 's supplanting me was altogether out
of the question. They grew, however, more in-
timate daily ; and thus matters went on for some
months.

One morning Hartwell called upon me, and so-
licited my attention to a business, as he called it,
of very great importance.

" Have you a mind to make your fortune, Gib-
son?" said he, with a confident, and a confidential
smile, that argued some proposition of a novel na-
ture.

I answered in the affirmative.

" You are a man of the world," he resumed ;
" and, therefore, few words will suffice. I know,
also, you are not over particular."

"What do you mean, Mr. Hartwell?" I re-
plied.

"As to the means whereby — " he rejoined.

" So long as those means are — "

" Safe," cried Hartwell ; " I understand. They
are so."

He now opened to me a scheme of villany —
a system of plunder, so well laid down, so ex-
quisitely arranged ; and entered into the minutia,
the pros, and cons., all that could be urged for and
against, so earnestly, and, at the same time, with
so much coolness and deliberation, that I was un-
able, when he concluded, to consider him in jest.

I took the precaution, however, of putting that
question to him.

" In jest? no !" cried Hartwell, in extreme as-
tonishment. " Look ye, Gibson. You have lost
large sums of late ; you are crippled, I know. I
put you in the wray of retrieving yourself; and
instead of thanking me, as you ought — "

He paused, in perfect bewilderment at my pro-
longed gravity.

" You do not seem to understand me," he con-
tinued, after a while. " Our accomplices — agents,
I mean — will manage the whole under my super-
intendence. You will have nothing to do but to
furnish the cash, and that but for a short time."

" I do not know what you have hitherto mis-
taken me for, Mr. Hartwell," I said at length,
" or what, in my recent conduct, has led you to
infer that I could be brought into a conspiracy like
this."

"How?" cried Hartwell.

" For instance," I resumed, "you yourself are
under many pecuniary obligations to me, for which
I have never troubled you, and which I now only
mention to prove to you that money cannot tempt
me to commit dishonorable actions."

Hartwell sat silent for some time, and bit his
lips with vexation.

" You have betrayed me, Mr. Gibson," he said
at length.

"How so? Rather, you have betrayed your-
self, Mr. Hartwell."

" It 's true, by G — ! I have so ;" and he arose.
" But, who could have thought that you — I never
would have spoken of it, but you compel me to do
so — that you, who have committed crimes that
should have hanged you, could have sported a con-
science, even in jest, or in your cups."

I was about to speak.

" Pshaw !" he continued, in disgust. " Steiner
told me — and I know it — that you — "

" Set fire to his house," said I, interrupting him.
" It is well he could get one to believe that, not in-
cluding himself. He could hardly expect that."

" What could he hardly expect ?" retorted Hart-
well ; " to be murdered for it ? Perhaps not. And
his wife — that tale wras well told, Mr. Gibson. Do
not turn pale ; blush, now, and look white at the
— elsewhere, I mean. Good morning, sir."

I let him go in silence. These were empty
threats, which he would repent in due time. He
waited upon me again in the afternoon, and, ex
pressing some regret for his former warmth, sound-
ed me once more respecting his project. I resisted
entertaining it, even more strongly than before.

Hartwell was wrought to a pitch of fury by my
obstinacy, which appeared to him perfectly incom-
prehensible. He repeated the same charges, with
the addition of others ; one, for instance, involving
a doubt of the paternity of young Steiner ; and left
me with threats, as before — threats which I de-
spised. He had now committed himself. I was
assured he knew nothing, which his language of the
morning, conveying so much truth, spoken at ran-
dom, had for a moment led me to fear.

I was not mistaken when I foresaw that Hartwell
would not dare to bring charges against me public-

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

261

ly which he had no means whatever of substantiat-
ing. I had not, however, conceived the possibility
of his tampering — of his disposition to do so I was
well aware, but of his being permitted to tamper —
with young Steiner. A few days, nevertheless,
convinced me that he had done so ; and a watchful
scrutiny of the manners and behavior of the young
man taught me to believe that he had done so suc-
cessfully ; that he had rendered him suspicious, dis-
trustful of me ; that, by means of an incongruous
collection of charges — for they were so, and would
so have appeared to the world at large — he had
made himself the too easy instrument of utterly
alienating Frederick's affections from his friend, his
guardian, and his benefactor.

I watched the young man closely, I have said,
and I was confirmed in my suspicions. He knows
but little of my nature who supposes I could bear
that certainty with patience. His constraint in my
presence became more and more manifest ; I could
see that he felt it more. He was uneasy, embar-
rassed in my company : I, on my part, was taciturn,
gloomy and morose. I had collected materials on
which to act ; it was now my purpose to put them
into shape.

That he — the only being in the world for whom
I cared a rush — against whom the whole world
would have weighed as lightly — that he, who had
been indebted to me, as an infant, for his life ; as a
boy, for his maintenance and protection ; as a man,
for his station and prospects in the world ; who
owed me more affection than he could have repaid
by gratitude, if he did not repay it, as I had hoped,
with affection ; that he should have turned against
me — silently, without inquiry, without scruple : —
this was more than I could bear. It stung me ; no,
no, it maddened me ! And yet, what was to be
done ? No more wild justice — no more revenge.
I could execute that no longer. I strove, for once
in my life, to think and to act calmly and dispas-
sionately, and to be directed by the result of sober
reflection, and the result of my reflections was mad-
ness— and yet I pondered deeply too.

Hartwell I despised too much to hate : I con-
temned and forgave him. Steiner was yet very
young. I had hitherto given him credit for gener-
osity of nature ; inexperienced as he was, the subtle
plausibility of a villain might have misled him. I
had suffered so much from falsehood heretofore, I
would now see what effect truth might have — the
whole truth.

Frederick was too young when his father left
England to remember him, and, consequently, he
would not regret his loss. His mother had been
dead many years. He should know all ; the
physical calamity that, when injured, converted me
into a madman ; the injuries I had endured ; all —
he should know all. If, after hearing, he hated
me, could he respect Hartwell ? I had no longer a
wish to live. If he was generous he would pity
me ; if otherwise, he might, if he so pleased, betray
me. I made myself up for that, and I was pleased
with it.
I met him early on the following morning. He

entered the room hastily, looking wild and hag-
gard.

" You were late last night, sir," I remarked.

" I did not come home," he answered, vaguely.

" With Hartwell, I presume? He has told you
something new respecting me."

" He will tell me no more," said he ; "I have
heard too much already."

" Not enough," I replied, smiling bitterly ; "I
also have something for your private ear. Sit
down, sir !" and I seized him by the arm.

''Let me go! — I must not stay here!" he ex-
claimed, striving to break from me ; but I held him
fast.

" Nay, but, Frederick Steiner, you must stay.
Promise me that you will hear me patiently : I will
not detain you long."

He sat down, covering his face with his hands.
" I obey you, sir."

" You must not interrupt me," I said.

Calmly — for madness is sometimes calm — and
with a studied emphasis — for I had rehearsed it .on
the previous night — I confessed everything, and
paused, awaiting his answer.

I noted well the gaze, the immovable gaze, which
was lifted up to me when I detailed the circum-
stances of my first crime ; that gaze, which contin-
ued without intermission, without alteration, with-
out meaning. I awaited his answer. Some min-
utes elapsed. I became alarmed, and, rising, took
him by the shoulder.

He shook me from him, as though I had been a
reptile, and bounded to his feet.

"What have I done?" he exclaimed, suddenly
recollecting himself. " My great God ! what have
I done 1 — Come not near me ! come not near me!"

I approached to pacify him. He seized me by
the shoulders, and, dashing me violently to the
ground, rushed from the room. I had scarcely
risen from the floor when he returned, and falling
at my feet, clasped my knees.

"Oh, my benefactor, my friend, my father, for-
give me!" he exclaimed. "I knew not what I
did ! What a dreadful, miserable mistake is this !
I see it all now. You suspected me of having lis-
tened to flartwell, of having believed him, which I
never did. I thought from your manner you felt
aggrieved by his calumnies — for calumnies, yes, by
Heaven, they were ! I met him this morning !"

There was a knocking at the door. " Rise ! for
God's sake, rise !" I exclaimed. " No one should
see you thus."

A young gentleman entered the room.

" Well, Harris ?" cried Frederick, and he sprang
towards him.

"You must fly !" cried the other. "Hartwell
is dead."

He staggered backward, and fell heavily to the
earth.

" What does this mean ?" said I, wildly.

" Has not your nephew told you, sir," said Har-
ris, raising his friend, " of the duel between Hart-
well and himself this morning ? The man is dead.
Prevail upon your nephew to fly."

262

NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

" Yes, I must fly!" cried Frederick, breaking
from him; "I must fly; but whither, and from
whom? Oh, sir!" and he cast an imploring gaze
towards me, " I am a murderer — a murderer !"

I was affected. He perceived it, and fell upon
my neck; and, taking my hands between his own,
he raised and kissed them.

" Oh, my best, my only friend, forgive me ! as I
shall pray, as I do now pray — what did I say ? — for
forgiveness for you."

He said no more, but hastened up stairs.

" Is he not rather long gone, sir?" said Harris.
" He need make no preparation under circumstances
like these."

"Gone? — where?" said I. I had not been
heeding the time.

A thought, almost a conviction, flashed across me.

" Run up stairs instantly !" I exclaimed, "or you
will be too late."

The words were scarce spoken ere the report of

a pistol was heard. Harris had come too late. He
had shot himself through the heart !

What followed I cannot tell. I knew not — I felt
not that he was dead for months afterwards.

Need I add more ? What I have been the reader
will conclude. What I am it were needless and
profitless to tell. What I feel — if I feel aught now
— may be best expressed in the words of an obscure
author, whose name I have forgotten, but whose
lines I remember.

But we are strong, as we have need of strength,
Even in our own default, and linger on,
Enduring and forbearing, till, at length,
The very staple of our griefs is gone,
And we grow hard by custom — 't is all one.
Our joys, deep laid in earth, our hopes above,
Nor hope nor joy disturbs the heart's dull tone ;
One stirs it not, nor can the other move,
While woe keeps tearless watch upon the grave of
love.

From tne New Monthly Magazine.

THE THREE WISHES. BY MRS. ACTON TIN-

DAL.

Nihil est ab omni

Parte beatum. —Hot. Od. 16 ; Lib. 2.

1.
I saw two youths, and one fair child beside them,

Discoursing idly of their coming days,
And marvelling what fortunes might betide them,

Threading with fancy's clue life's future maze.
The sun shone on them and around — the earth
Was glad as their own hearts with vernal mirth.

ii.
The eldest-born spoke first — on every feature
Beamed fiery genius yet untamed by grief;
A frank, and brave, unchastened, generous crea-
ture,
WThose faults and virtues stood in bold relief;
" I ask for fame," he said, " o'er crowds to blaze —
Give me the scholar's lore, the poet's bays !"

The second spoke — cold, calm, and unimpas-
sioned —
He asked for wealth, and power that wealth
might gain ;
In stronger mould, and coarser, he was fashioned ;

Less vivid were his joys, less keen his pain ;
He asked for length of days, and hours of ease,
Menials to serve him, courtier friends to please.

IV.

The fair child spoke — " I would there were no
sighing,

No tears to wipe away, where I may dwell ;■
Unknown the mystery and the fear of dying,

Unheard in that bright land the cold farewell ;
Here change and darkness come o'er all things fair,
And living eyes grow dim neath brows of care."

v.

A year had passed — gay was the new May
morning ;

The birds were warbling in the budding trees,
While nature sprang to life — in solemn warning,

The knell of death resounded on the breeze —
White plumes were floating o'er the funeral train ;
They bore the young to earth's cold arms again.

Yes ! the three friends were there ; but two were
weeping

In mourning garments next the funeral bier.
While the fair child beneath the pall was sleeping,

Dried up the fountain of each human tear !
His wish was granted, and the child was blest —
For God had given his beloved rest !

VII.

Years flitted by — the glory had departed,
And life's enchantment faded from the eye

Of him, the bard — the brave, the lofty-hearted —
Who bent to fame in proud idolatry —

Yet his the proud applause he once desired,

Him wonderinp- crowds had followed and admired.

Of what, avail to him the praises spoken

By stranger tongues, the tears that dew his lays?

Old ere his time, in strength and spirit broken,
Sad was the evening of the poet's days !

Wreaths deck his tomb, and anthems lull his rest,

And spirits like his own declare him blest.

And he who asked for wealth — his prayer was
granted ;

Unharmed, his argosies the seas restore ;
Jaundiced the ingots seemed for which he panted,

Yet still insatiate, still he thirsts for more.
Human affections in his heart grow cold,
And o'er their ashes cowers the lust of gold !

Yes! mark his furrowed brow — the fitful gleaming,
Sudden and anxious, of his sunken eye —

He knows not whom to trust, howe'er fair-seeming ;
The love he never sought, no wealth can buy ;

He fears his neighbor, and he hates his heir —

For Heaven hath cursed him — granting him his
prayer !

XI.

Be wise ! and leave with God the coming years ;

Thy future, as thy past, before him lies.
Shrine in thy heart no idol — doubts and fears

Perplex our fancy-woven destinies !
Trust Him in time and death ; be stilJ, and wait;
The silver lines of mercy thread thy fate !

THE BICETRE IN 1792.

263

From Chambers' Journal.
THE BICETRE IN 1792.*

It was in the latter end of 1792 that Pinel,
who had been appointed some time before medical
superintendent of the Bicetre, urgently applied
for permission from the authorities to abolish the
use of the irons with which the lunatics were
then loaded. Unsuccessful, but resolved to gain
his object, he repeated his complaints with re-
doubled ardor before the Commune of Paris, and
demanded the reform of this barbarous system.

" Citizen," replied one of the members of the
commune, " to-morrow 1 will pay you and the
Bicetre a visit. But woe to you if you deceive
us, and are concealing the enemies of the people
amongst your madmen !"

The member of the commune who spoke thus
was Couthon. The next day he arrived at the
Bicetre.

Couthon was himself perhaps as strange a sight
as that which he had come to see. Deprived of
the use of both his legs, he was always carried
about on men's shoulders ; and thus mounted and
deformed, he, with a soft and feminine voice, pro-
nounced sentences of death ; for death . was the
only logic at that moment. Couthon wished to
see, and personally to question, the lunatics one
after another. He was conducted to their quarter
of the building ; but to all his questions he re-
ceived but insults and sanguinary addresses, and
heard nothing amidst the confused cries and mad
howling but the chilling clank of the chains rever-
berating through the disgustingly dirty and damp
vaults. Soon fatigued by the monotony of the
spectacle and the futility of his inquiries, Couthon
turned round to Pinel, and said, "Ah, citizen, are
not you yourself mad to think of unchaining such
animals V

" Citizen," replied the other, " I am convinced
that these lunatics have become so unmanageable
solely because they are deprived of air and liber-
ty, and I venture to hope a great deal from a
thoroughly different method."

" Well, then, do what you like with them ; I
give them up to you. But I fear you will fall a
victim to your presumption."

Now master of his actions, Pinel commenced
the next day his enterprise, the real difficulties of
which he had never for a moment disguised to
himself. He contemplated liberating about fifty
raving madmen without danger to the more peace-
able inmates. He decided to unchain but twelve
as a first experiment. The only precaution he
judged necessary to adopt was to prepare an equal
number of waistcoats — those made of stout linen,
with long sleeves, and fastened at the back, by
means of which it is easy to prevent a lunatic
doing serious mischief.

The first whom Pinel addressed was the oldest
in this scene of misery. He was an English cap-
tain ; his history was unknown ; and he had been

* From the account of Dr. Scipion Pinel, son of the
humane and scientific physician of lhat name.

confined there for forty years. He was considered
the most ferocious of all. His keepers even ap-
proached him with caution ; for in a fit of violence
he had struck one of the servants with his chains,
and killed him on the spot. He was more harsh-
ly treated than the others, and this severity and
complete abandonment only tended still more to
exasperate his naturally violent temper.

Pinel entered his cell alone, and addressed him
calmly. " Captain," said he, "if I take off your
chains, and give you liberty to walk up and down
the yard, will you promise me to be reasonable,
and to injure no one ?"

" I will promise you ; but you are making
game of me. They are all too much afraid of
me, even you yourself."

" No, indeed, I am not afraid," replied Pinel ;
" for I have six men outside to make you respect
me : but believe my word ; confide in me, and be
docile. I intend to liberate you, if you will put
on this linen waistcoat in place of your heavy
chains."

The captain willingly agreed to all they re-
quired of him, only shrugging his shoulders, and
never uttering a word. In a few minutes his
irons were completely loosened, and the doctor
and his assistants retired, leaving the door of his
cell open.

Several times he stood up, but sank down
again : he had been in a sitting posture for such
a length of time, that he had almost lost the use
of his limbs. However, at the end of a quarter
of an hour he succeeded in preserving his equi-
librium ; and from the depth of his dark cell he
advanced, tottering towards the door. His first
movement was to look up at the heavens, and to
cry out in ecstasy, " How beautiful !" During
the whole day he never ceased running up and
down the stairs, always exclaiming, " How beau-
tiful ! How delightful !" In the evening he re-
turned of his own accord to his cell, slept tran-
quilly on a good bed which had been provided for
him in the mean time, and during the following
two years which he spent at the Bicetre he never
again had a violent fit ; he even made himself use-
ful, exercising a certain authority over the other
lunatics, governing them after his fashion, and
establishing himself as a kind of superintendent.

His neighbor in captivity was not less worthy
of pity. He was an old French officer, who had
been in chains for the past thirty years, having
been afflicted with one of those terrible religious
monomanias of which we even now-a-days see
such frequent examples. Of weak understanding
and lively imagination, he conceived himself des-
tined by God for the baptism of blood — that is to
say, to kill his fellow-creatures, in order to save
them from hell, and to send them straight to
heaven, there to enjoy the felicity of the blessed !
This horrible idea was the cause of his commit-
ting a frightful crime. He commenced his homi-
cidal mission by plunging a dagger into the heart
of his own child. He was declared insane, con-
fined for life in the Bicetre, and had been afflicted

264

THE BICETRE IN 17S2.

for years with this revolting madness. Calmness
at length returned, but without reason : he sat on
a stone silent and immovable, resembling an ema-
ciated spectre of remorse. His limbs were still
laaded with the same irons as when first he was
confined, but which he had no longer strength to
lift. They were left on him as much from habit
as from the remembrance of his crime. His case
was hopeless. Dr. Pinel had him carried to a
bed in the infirmary ; his legs, however, were so
stiff and contracted, that all attempts to bend them
failed. In this state he lived a few months longer,
and then died, without being aware of his release.

The third presented a strange contrast. He
was a man in the prime of life, with sparkling
eyes; his bearing haughty, and gestures dramatic.
In his youth he had been a literary character. He
was gentle, witty, and had a brilliant imagination.
He composed romances, full of love, expressed in
impassioned language. He wrote unceasingly ;
and in order to devote himself with greater ardor
to his favorite compositions, he ended by locking
himself up in his room, often passing the day
without food, and the night without sleep. To
complete all, an unfortunate passion added to his
excitement : he fell in love with the daughter of
one of his neighbors. She, however, soon grew
tired of the poor author, was inconstant to him,
and did not even allow him the consolation of a
doubt. During a whole year the anguish of the
poor dreamer was the more bitter from conceal-
ment. At length, one fine day he saw the absur-
dity of his despair, and passing from one extreme
to the other, gave himself up to every kind of
excess. His reason fled, and taken to the Bicetre
in a raging fit, he remained confined for twelve
years in the dark cell where Pinel found him
flinging about his chains with violence. This
madman was more turbulent than dangerous, and,
incapable of understanding the good intended to
him, it was necessary to employ force to loosen
his irons. Once he felt himself at liberty, he
commenced running round and round the court-
yard, until his breath failing, he fell down quite
exhausted. This excitement continued for some
weeks, but unaccompanied by violence, as former-
ly. The kindness shown to him by the doctor,
and the especial interest he took in this invalid,
soon restored him to reason. Unfortunately he
was permitted to leave the asylum and return to
the world, then in such a state of agitation ; he
joined the political factions of the day with all the
vehemence of his passions, and was beheaded on
the 8th Thermidor.

Pinel entered the fourth cell. It was that of
Chevinge, whose liberation was one of the most
memorable events of that day.

Chevinge had been a soldier of the French
Guard, and had only one fault — that of drunken-
ness. But once the wine mounted into his head,
he grew quarrelsome, violent, and most danger-
ous, from his prodigious strength. Frequent ex-
cesses caused his dismissal from his corps, and he
soon squandered his scanty resources. At length

shame and misery plunged him in despair, and
his mind became affected. He imagined that he
had become a general, and fought all who did not
acknowledge his rank. It was at the termination
of a mad scene of this kind that he was brought
to the Bicetre in a state of fury. He had been
chained for ten years, and with stronger fetters
than his companions, for he had often succeeded
in breaking his chains by the mere force of his
hands. Once, in particular, when by this means
he had obtained a few moments of liberty, he de-
fied all the keepers together to force him to return
to his cell, and only did so after compelling them
to pass under his uplifted leg. This inconceiva-
ble act of prowess he performed on the eight men
who were trying to master him. From hence-
forth his strength became a proverb at the Bicetre.
By repeatedly visiting him, Pinel discovered that
good dispositions lay hidden beneath violence of
character, constantly kept excited by cruel treat-
ment. On one occasion he promised to ameliorate
his condition, and this promise alone had greatly
tranquillized him. Pinel now ventured to an-
nounce to him that he should no longer be forced
to wear his chains. " And to prove that I have
confidence' in you," added he, " and that I consid-
er you to be a man capable of doing good, you
shall assist me in releasing those unfortunate in-
dividuals who do not possess their reason like you.
If you conduct yourself properly, as I have cause
to hope you will, I shall then take you into my
service, and you shall not leave me."

Never in the mind of man was there seen so
sudden or complete a change : the keepers them-
selves were forced to respect Chevinge from his
conduct. No sooner was he unchained, than he
became docile, attentive, watching every move-
ment of Pinel, so as to execute his orders dexter-
ously and promptly, addressing words of kindness
and reason to those lunatics with whom he had
been on a level but a few hours previously, but in
whose presence he now felt the full dignity of lib-
erty. This man, who had been unhumanized by
his chains during the best years of his life, and
who doubtless would have dragged on this agoniz-
ing existence for a considerable length of time,
became at once a model of good conduct and grat-
itude. Frequently in those perilous times he saved
Pinel's life; and one day, amongst others, rescued
him from a band of ruffians, who were dragging
him off tl la lanterne, as an elector of 1789. Dur-
ing a threatened famine, he every morning left the
Bicetre, and never returned without provisions,
which at that moment were unpurchaseable even
for gold. The remainder of his life was but one
continued act of devotion to his liberator.

Next room to Chevinge, three unfortunate sol-
diers had been in chains for years, without any
one knowing the cause of this rigor. They were
generally quiet and inoffensive, speaking only to
each other, and that in a language unintelligible
to the rest of the prisoners. They had, however,
been granted the only privilege which they seemed
capable of appreciating — that of being always to-

INDIAN MEAL.

265

gether in the same cell. When they became
aware of a change in their usual mode of treat-
ment, they suspected it to proceed from unfriendly
motives, and violently opposed the loosening of
their irons. When liberated, they would not
leave their prison. Either from grief or want of
understanding, these unhappy creatures were in-
sensible to the liberty now offered to them.

After them came a singular personage, one of
those men whose malady is the more difficult of
cure, from its being " a fixed idea," occasioned by
excessive pride. He was an old clergyman, who
thought himself Christ. His exterior corresponded
to the vanity of his belief; his gait was measured
and solemn ; his smile, sweet yet severe, forbade
the least familiarity ; everything, even to the ar-
rangement of his hair, which hung down in long
curls on each side of his pale, resigned, and ex-
pressive countenance, gave him a singular resem-
blance to the beautiful head of our Saviour. If
they tried to perplex him, and said, " If thou art
Him whom thou pretendest ; in short, if thou art
God, break thy chains and liberate thyself!" he
immediately, with pride and dignity, replied, " In
vain shalt thou tempt thy Lord !" The sublimity
of human arrogance in derangement !

The life of this man was a complete romance,
in which religious enthusiasm played the first part.
He had made pilgrimages on foot to Cologne and
Rome, and had then embarked for America, where,
among the savages, he risked his life in the hope
of converting them to the true faith. But all these
travels, all these voyages, had the melancholy
effect of turning his ruling idea into a monomania.
On his return to France, he publicly announced
himself as Him whose gospel he had been preach-
ing far and wide. Seized and brought before the
Archbishop of Paris, he was shut up in the Bicetre
as a lunatic, his hands and feet were loaded with
heavy irons, and for twelve years he bore with
singular patience this long martyrdom and the in-
cessant sarcasms to which he was exposed.

Argument with such minds is useless ; they
neither can nor will understand it. Pinel, there-
fore, never attempted to reason with him ; he un-
chained him in silence, and loudly commanded that
every one for the future should imitate his reserve,
and never address a single word to this poor lunatic.
This line of conduct, which was rigorously ob-
served, produced an effect on this self-conceited
man far more powerful than the irons and the
dungeon. He felt himself humbled by this isola-
tion, this total abandonment, in the full enjoyment
of his liberty. At length, after much hesitation,
he began to mix with the other invalids. From
that time forward he visibly improved, and in less
than a year was sufficiently recovered to acknowl-
edge the folly of his former ideas, and to leave the
Bicetre. * * *

Fifty lunatics were in this manner released from
their chains in the space of a few days. Amongst
them were individuals from every rank of life, and
from every country. Hence the great amelioration
in the treatment of insane patients, which, until

then, had been looked on as impracticable, or at
least fraught with the utmost danger.

From Fraser'a Magazine.
INDIAN MEAL.

It is much to be regretted that no individual of
the many large classes whose business and interest
it might seem to be, has yet taken any effective
steps towards opening to our population the im-
mense resource of Indian corn as an article of food.
To all that have well considered it, this grain
seems likely henceforth to be the staff of life for
over-crowded Europe ; capable not only of re-
placing the deceased potato which has now left
us, but of infinitely surpassing in usefulness and
cheapness all that the potato ever was.

For general attainability, there was no article of
food ever comparable to it before ; a grown man,
in any part of Europe accessible by sea, can be
supported on it, at this date, wholesomely, and, if
we understood the business, even agreeably, at the
rate of little more than a penny a day ; — which
surely is cheap enough. Neither, as the article
is not grown at home, and can be procured only
by commerce, need political economists dread new
" Irish difficulties" from the cheapness of it. Nor
is there danger, for unlimited periods yet, of its
becoming dearer ; it grows in the warm latitudes
of the earth, profusely, with the whole impulse
of the sun ; can grow over huge tracts and conti-
nents lying vacant hitherto, festering hitherto as
pestiferous jungles, yielding only rattlesnakes and
yellow-fever ; — it is probable, if we were driven
to it, the planet Earth, sown where fit with Indian
corn, might produce a million times as much food
as it now does, or has ever done ! To the discon-
solate Malthusian this grain ought to be a sov-
ereign comfort. In the single valley of the Mis-
sissippi alone, were the rest of the earth all lying
fallow, there could Indian corn enough be grown
to support the whole posterity of Adam now alive ;
let the disconsolate Malthusian fling his " geo-
metrical series" into the corner ; assist wisely in
the " free-trade movement ;" and dry up his tears.
For a thousand years or two, there is decidedly
no danger of our wanting food, if we do not want
good sense and industry first. In a word, this in-
valuable foreign corn is not only calculated, as we
said, to replace the defunct potato, but to surpass
it a thousand-fold in benefit for man ; and if the
death of the potato have been the means of awaken-
ing us to such an immeasurably superior resource,
we shall, in addition to our sorrowful Irish rea-
sons, have many joyful English, European, Amer-
ican and universal reasons, to thank Heaven that
the potato has been so kind as die !

In the mean while, though extensively employed
in the British Islands within these three years,
Indian corn cannot yet be said to have come into
use ; for only the bungled counterfeit of it is
hitherto in use ; which may be well called not the
use of Indian corn, but the abuse of it. Govern-
ment did, indeed, on the first failure of the potato,
send abroad printed papers about the cooking of

266

INDIAN MEAL.

this article, for behoof of the poor ; and once, I
recollect, there circulated in all the newspapers,
for some weeks, promulgated by some " Peace
Missionary," a set of flowery prophetic recipes for
making Indian meal into most palatable puddings,
with " quarts of cream," " six eggs well whipt,"
&c. — ingredients out of which the British female
intellect used to make tolerable puddings, even
without Indian meal, and by recipes of its own !
Those recipes were circulated among the popula-
tion— of little or no value, I now find, even as rec-
ipes ; — but in the mean while there was this fatal
omission made, that no Indian meal on fair terms,
and no good Indian meal on any terms at all, was
or is yet attainable among us to try by any recipe.
In that unfortunate condition, I say, matters still
remain.

The actual value of Indian meal by retail, with
a free demand, is about one penny per pound ; or
with a poor demand, as was inevitable at first, but
need not have been necessary long, let us say three-
halfpence a pound. The London shops, two years
ago, on extensive inquiry, were not found to yield
any of it under threepence a pound — the price of
good wheaten flour ; somewhere between twice
and three times the real cost of Indian meal. But
further, and worse, all the Indian meal so pur-
chaseable was found to have a bitter, fusty taste in
it ; which, after multiplied experiments, was not
eradicable by any cookery, though long continued
boiling in clear water did abate it considerably.
Our approved method of cookery came at last to
be, that of making the meal with either hot or cold
water into a thick batter, and boiling it, tied up in
a linen cloth or set in a crockery shape, for four or
sometimes seven hours ; — which produced a thick
handsome-looking pudding, such as one might have
hoped would prove very eligible for eating instead
of potatoes along with meat. Hope, however, did
not correspond to experience. This handsome-
looking pudding combined readily with any kind
of sauce, sweet, spicy, oleaginous ; but except the
old tang of bitterness, it had little taste of its own ;
and along with meat, " it could," like Charles of
Sweden's bread, "' be eaten," but was never good,
at best was barely endurable.

Yet the Americans praised their Indian meal ;
celebrated its sapid excellencies, and in magazine-
novels, as we could see, "lyrically recognized"
them. Where could the error lie ? This meal,
of a beautiful golden color, equably ground into
find hard powder, and without speck or admixture
of any kind, seemed to the sight, to the feel and
the smell, faultless ; only to the taste was there
this ineradicable final bitterness, which in bad
samples even made the throat smart ; and , as the
meal seemed otherwise tasteless, acquired for it,
from unpatriotic mockers among us, the name of
" soot-and-sawdust meal." American friends at
last informed us that the meal was fusty, spoiled ;
that Indian meal, especially in warm weather, did
not keep sweet above a few weeks ; — that we ought
to procure Indian corn, and have it ground our-
selves. Indian corn was accordingly procured ;

with difficulty from the eastern city regions ; and
with no better result, nay with a worse. How
old the corn might be we, of course, knew only by
testimony not beyond suspicion ; perhaps it was
corn of the second year in bond ; but at all events
the meal of it too was bitter ; and the new evil
was added of an intolerable mixture of sand; which,
on reflection, we discovered to proceed from the
English millstones ; the English millstones, too
soft for this new substance, could not grind it,
could only grind themselves and it, and so produce
a mixture of meal and sand. Soot-and-sawdust
meal with the addition of brayed flint ; there was
plainly no standing of this. I had to take farewell
of this Indian meal experiment ; my poor patriotic
attempt to learn eating the new food of mankind,
had to terminate here. My molendinary resources
(as you who read my name will laughingly admit)
were small ; my individul need of meal was small ;
— in fine my stock of patience too was done.

This being the condition under which Indian
meal is hitherto known to the British population,
no wonder they have little love for it, no wonder
it has got a bad name among them ! " Soot-and-
sawdust meal, with an admixture of brayed flint;"
this is not a thing to fall in love with ; nothing
but starvation can well reconcile a man to this.
The starving Irish paupers, we accordingly find,
do but eat and curse ; complain loudly that their
meal is unwholesome ; that it is bad and bitter ;
that it is this and that ; — to all which there is lit-
tle heed paid, and the official person has to answer
with a shrug of the shoulders. In the unwhole-
someness, except perhaps for defect of boiling, I
do not at all believe ; but as to the bitter uncooked
unpalatability my evidence is complete.

Well ; three days ago I received, direct from
the barn of an American friend, as it was stowed
there last autumn, a small barrel of Indian corn in
the natural state ; large ears or cobs of the Indian
corn, merely stript of its loose leaves. On each
ear, which is of obelisk shape, about the size of a
large, thick truncated carrot, there are perhaps
about five hundred grains, arranged in close order
in their eight columns ; the color gold yellow, or
in some cases with a flecker of blood-red. These
grains need to be rubbed off, and ground by some
rational miller, whose millstones are hard enough
for the work ; that is all the secret of preparing
them. And here comes the important point. This
grain, I now for the first time find, is sweet, among
the sweetest ; with an excellent rich taste, some-
thing like that of nuts ; indeed, it seems to me,
perhaps from novelty in part, decidedly sweeter
than wheat, or any other grain I have ever tasted.
So that, it would appear, all our experiments
hitherto on Indian meal have been vitiated to the
heart by a deadly original sin, or fundamental fal-
sity to start with ; — as if experimenting on West-
phalian ham, all the ham presented to us hitherto
for trial had been — in a rancid state. The differ-
ence between ham and rancid-ham, M. Soyer well
knows, is considerable ! This is the difference,
however, this highly considerable one, we have

THE KENTUCKY FORGER.

267

had to encounter hitherto in all our experiences of
Indian meal. Ground by a reasonable miller, who
grinds only it, and not his millstones along with
it, this grain, I can already promise, will make ex-
cellent, cleanly, wholesome, and palatable eating ;
and be fit for the cook's art under all manner of
conditions ; ready to combine with whatever ju-
dicious condiment, and reward well whatever wise
treatment he applies to it ; and, indeed, on the
whole, I should say, a more promising article
could not well be submitted to him, if his art is
really a useful one.

These facts, in a time of potato-failures, appre-
hension of want, and occasional fits of wide-spread
too-authentic want and famine, when M. Soyer
has to set about concocting miraculously cheap
soup, and the government to make enormous
grants and rates-in-aid, seem to me of a decidedly
comfortable kind ; — well deserving practical inves-
tigation by the European Soyer, governments,
poor-law boards, mendicity societies, friends of
distressed needlewomen, and friends of the human
species, who are often sadly in alarm as to the
" food prospects" — and who have here, if they
will clear the entrance, a most extensive harbor
of refuge. Practical English enterprise, indepen-
dent of benevolence, might now find, and will by
and by have to find, in reference to this foreign
article of food, an immense development. And as
for specially benevolent bodies of men, whose
grand text is the " food prospects," they, I must
declare, are wandering in darkness with broad day
beside them, till they teach us to get Indian meal,
such as our American cousins get, that we may
eat it with thanks to Heaven as they do. New
food, whole continents of food ; — and not rancid
ham, but the actual sound Westphalia ! To this
consummation we must come ; there is no other
harbor of refuge for hungry human populations : —
but all the distressed population fleets and discon-
solate Malthusians of the world may ride there ;
and surely it is great pity the entrance were not
cleared a little, and a few buoys set up, and sound-
ings taken by competent persons.

18 April, 1849. C.

THE KENTUCKY FORGER.

It is related of that unfortunate man, Martin
Brown — who was once a prominent member of
the Kentucky Legislature, but was confined in
the penitentiary for forgery — that when he first
settled in Texas the inhabitants were determined
to drive him out of Austin's settlement of San
Felipe, because he had been a convict. Austin
himself had forbidden such persons to settle on
his ground, and the colonial law passed by him
was most strict, prohibiting an asylum to refugees
and all persons rendered infamous by felonies, of
whatever description they might be — a law which
the father of Texas always enforced with the
utmost rigor. Hence, as soon as the settlers
informed the general of this new case, he im-
mediately sent an order warning Brown to decamp

within three days, on pain of summary punish-
ment. The messenger was William S , Aus-
tin's private secretary, a young man of cultivated
intellect, noble heart, and generous to a fault. He
arrived at the Green Heart Grove, the residence
of Brown and his family, one summer's noon, and
found the family circle formed around their frugal
table. It was the dinner hour.

S forthwith delivered Austin's written or-
der, which Brown glanced over and then said
mournfully : —

" Tell General Austin that I shall never move
from this spot till I move into my grave. It is
true I committed a great crime in my native state ;
but 1 also suffered the severe penalty of the offended
law ; and then, with my dear wife and children,
who still love me, I stole away from the eyes of
society, which I no longer wish to serve or injure,
to live in quiet and die in peace. I am ready and
willing to die ; but on my family's account I can-
not and will not leave this spot."

His wife and daughter implored him to change
his resolution. They avowed their willingness
again to undergo the toils and privations of emi-
gration, and, if necessary, to prepare a new home
in the wilderness. But prayers, tears, and en-
treaties were alike vain. To every argument
Martin Brown gave the same answer in a calm,
sad voice :

" I chose my place of burial the first day I set
eyes on my little grove, and I shall not change my
mind now."

S returned, deeply touched with the scene

he had witnessed, related to General Austin the
singular state of facts, and interceded urgently for
a relaxation of the law, which rested in the dis-
cretion of the colonial chief.

" You have suffered yourself to be smitten by
the charms of the beautiful Emma," said General
Austin, with a smile.

S tried to look indignant, which effort

merely resulted in a burning blush.

" I will go and see Martin myself," added the
general ; " but he will have to make out a strong
case to alter my determination."

When Austin arrived in the evening at his des-
tination, the family of the grove were almost dis-
tracted with grief. Brown's countenance alone
wore its old mask of marble tranquillity. His
story told to General Austin was simple as it was
brief.

"It is true," he said, " I was in the peniten-
tiary of Kentucky ; but I was in the legislature
before I was in the state prison, and while a mem-
ber of the senate opposed with all my might the
manufacture of so many banks. Those banks soon
afterwards beggared thousands, and amongst the
rest me and my children. I was then tempted, in
order to save my family, to perpetrate a forgery, or
to do that on a small scale which the state and its
banks had so long been doing on a large one. I
paid the forfeit of my crime. While the grand
swindlers rolled in affluence, I pined alone in a
felon's dungeon. Having served out my time, I

268

THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED.

resolved never again to commit another wrong. I
have kept my word, and have now but one sole
desire, to be let alone or die."

General Austin did let the old man alone, can-
celled the order for his banishment, and was ever
after his steadfast friend.

S , the private secretary, made other visits

to the Green Heart Grove, and the beautiful Emma
is now the wife of an eminent lawyer, and a " bright
particular star" of fashion's sphere at Galveston.

Martin died at last in peace, and was buried in
his beloved grove, (at his special request,) in a
most fantastic manner — standing erect, in a full
hunter's costume, with his right hand raised to-
wards heaven and his loaded rifle on his left
shoulder.

His biography proves a great truth — one which
all the tomes of human history proclaim, as with
the warning cry of a million of trumpets : " That
the crimes of governments always produce their
counterparts in the vices of their individual sub-
jects."— JV. O. Picayune.

[We copy the following melancholy story from the N.
Y. Evening Post. And we hope that the energy which
had almost been successful may be again exerted. We
say to our poor fellow-sinner, try again.]

THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED.

Some of our readers may not have seen a letter
which we published a few days since, from a man
who, in a fit of drunkenness, listed with Col.
Stevenson's regiment in the fall of 1847, and at
the close of the war went to dig gold in California,
We copy his letter, therefore, for the sake of the
moral which we have to append to it :

San Francisco, California, April 9th, 1849.

Dear Wife — I received your letter this day,
dated 1st March, 1848. Dear Bridget, I have
wrote to you four letters, which I expect you never
received them, but when I received this this day, it
causes me more gladness than one thousand dollars,
which I can spare at a moment's warning. When
I came down from the mines, I deposited twenty-
seven pounds of gold, finer than Barnet could make
it, in Mercer street. Dear Bridget, if you 're at a
loss for anything, draw what you want from Mr.
G., as I will pay him double interest on every cent
that he gives you. I want you to keep George at
school, as I have something in my power now to
make him a man during his life. Dear Eliza, my
daughter, I hope you 're a good girl, and take your
mother's advice. After being discharged, I spent
six months at the mines, after that I came down
to San Francisco, on account of hearing of a letter
from New York. This caused me eight hundred
miles of a journey, dear Bridget. From here,
I am going right back to the mines, but you
may expect me back next fall. You may not write
any more. James Brogan is going with me, next
turn, to the mines ; and from James' sentiments, he
is coming on with me to New York. Dear Bridget,
for these last six months it cost me fifteen hundred
dollars. Snow or rain, I could pick up a doubloon

or ounce a day. Dear Bridget, I am as smart now,
after all the fatigue of California, as a French
dancing master. I wish you all well, but in a short
time you will see another kind of an Andrew
Loughrey in New York. I have not danced " Pad-
dy Burns the School Master," in eighteen months.

This letter was received here, and published in
the Post on the 20th inst. Only two days after its
receipt, to the extreme surprise and joy of his wife
and family, Loughrey presented himself before
them. He had accumulated at the mines nine
or ten thousand dollars, and supposing the sum in-
exhaustible, took passage to this country very soon
after the above letter was written, having about
$7,000 worth of dust in his trunk, and the balance
of his wealth on his person.

His idleness and prosperity were too much for
his new resolutions. He abandoned himself to in-
temperance, and the money so easily acquired was
lightly prized. On his arrival in this city he hired
a carriage to carry him to his home, which his
golden letter had but a few hours previous made
so happy ; but before he reached it he had con-
trived to spend forty dollars, in drink and upon his
driver, and on his arrival, the trunk containing
his $7,000 was missing, and a large portion of the
money which he had brought away upon his per-
son. His unhappy wife, when she became aware
of her foolish husband's improvidence, solicited the
aid of gentlemen to whom she was known, and
steps were immediately taken to preserve what
money had not been wasted, and to recover what
had undoubtedly been stolen from him. About
$1200 were thus saved and sent to the mint at
Philadelphia. The trunk and its contents are
probably lost forever. Loughrey can give no ac-
count whatever of it.

The loss of his money is not the greatest of
Loughrey's misfortunes. His friends here in-
dulged the hope that he had effectually mastered
the vice of which he had so long been a victim,
and that the fervent resolutions contained in his
letter would be respected. Had they been, he
and his family would now have been insured a
comfortable home for life; his children would
have enjoyed the inestimable advantages he prom-
ised them in his letter ; and he would have been
the pride of his wife — the hope of his children —
and an object of respect, both to his friends and
to himself. He has now forfeited all confidence
in himself, and he has foolishly and wickedly
plunged his family back again fo poverty and ig-
norance. The moral of this story needs no ampli-
fication.— N. Y. Evening Post.

The passions, like heavy bodies down steep hills,
once in motion, move themselves, and know no
ground but the bottom. — Fuller.

Love is the great instrument and engine of nature,
the bud and cement of society, the spring and spirit
of the universe. — Dr. South.

NATIONAL MELODY.

269

From the British Quarterly Review.

1. Poems and Songs by Allan Cunningham, now

first Collected, with an Introduction and Notes.
By Peter Cunningham. London : John Mur-
ray, Albemarle street. 1847.

2. Wilson's Edition of the Songs of Scotland, as

Sung in his Entertainments on Scottish Music
and Song. Printed for Mr. Wilson, 47, Gower-
street. London. 1842.

If any observing person will attend a concert or
two of miscellaneous music, and take particular
notice of what he sees, he shall almost to a cer-
tainty witness the following- curious phenomena.
If by any chance a lively air be performed of the
hornpipe, jig-, reel, or strathspey kind, he will per-
ceive it to be responded to by nearly the whole of
the audience. Some will beat time with their
feet, others with their hands, others will mark it
by a nod ; but nearly all will be affected by it
more or less, especially if it be a choice specimen
of the Highland strathspey or Irish planxty. If,
again, a pathetic air be given — one of those, for
instance, which the genius of Burns or of Thomas
Moore has married to immortal verse, the symp-
toms will vary. Only a small portion of the au-
ditory will be seen to be moved by it : but those
that are so will be moved indeed. They will hang
on it with rapture, and, as it were, drain the very
last drop of sound ; much as the wanderer in the
desert drains his last draught of water.

If, after this, some scientific movement — some
overture, or sinfonia, or concerted piece of any
kind, be played, this will also produce a partial
effect, and a considerable portion of those who
hear shall again be effected with a visible delight.
But this portion will not consist of those who hung
with rapture, and perhaps tears, upon the strain
of the pathetic air. To its magic these were in-
different. They are now, however, roused ; and
if, after the symphony, or the overture, a bravura
shall be sung, or a solo be executed, involving
feats of vocal or instrumental dexterity, you shall
see them almost shatter the benches in the furor of
their applause ; which pathos could not even move,
but which the slight of a violinist's hand, or the
tours de force and flights of a " prima donna" of
the opera can call forth in a top-spring-tide. This
is a strange spectacle. Yet it is one which al-
most every miscellaneous concert, performed before
a promiscuous audience, will be seen to exhibit, to
him who shall be at the pains nicely to observe
the effects of music on those around him.

A more curious fact of the inquiry is, however,
the cause — "for this effect defective comes by
cause" — of a scene so singular. This cause is to
be found in a simple fact : that fact being that mod-
ern philosophers, under the term "music" and
" musicians," have chosen to include two pursuits
totally distinct and dissimilar, each followed and
cultivated by persons equally unlike in taste, tem-
perament, constitution, and all that combines to
make up the mental man. The principles, upon
and by which each set of amateurs is affected by
each set of sounds, are totally remote and apart ;

nor have the two parties anything in common ex-
cept the misfortune of being confounded together
as cultivators of one science, whilst all the time
they are cultivating two, as opposite in the prin-
ciples, feelings, and effects connected with them,
as are day and night, or body and mind. To
most readers this may probably appear as an as-
sertion somewhat startling. It is only natural
that it should. To those, however, who do us the
honor to read these pages, this matter may perhaps
assume a different shape ; and, in that hope, we at
once proceed

To make these odds all even !

Of the origin or nature of music practised by
the ancients, properly so called, we in truth know
little or nothing. After all the learned disserta-
tions of Dr. Burney and others, as to the " dia-
tonic" and " enharmonic scales" of the Greeks,
we are hardly wiser than before. If we are to
believe these "learned Thebans," the classical
lyrists and flute-players must have possessed a
nicety of ear, to which the most cultivated organ
of modern times cannot approach, or scarcely so.
The best ear is at fault when the division is carried
beyond the semi-tone. Catalani, it was said,
could run down the scale in distinct quarto tones ;
but most auditors undoubtedly took the feat upon
credit. " Custodes quis custodiet ipsos ?" As
to the " enharmonic scale" of Dr. Burney, if we
confess ourselves to be sceptics, it is only because
we believe there is nothing now really to be known.
If the ancients had any mode of musical notation,
it is lost ; nor has the treatise of Philodemus, un-
rolled from the papyri of Herculaneum, enlightened
us upon the subject. All that can be conjectured
with any plausibility as to the music of ancient
times is, that it consisted merely of melody, of
some kind or other, including in that term that
which in our day is known as " recitative," or
"chant." In recitative of some kind it is prob-
able the ancient tragic dramas were declaimed.
The chorus was probably a melody, sung by many
voices in unison ; for there is no probable ground
for believing that the ancient Greeks and Romans
had any idea of the science, which we call harmo-
ny or counterpoint. Of the construction of these
melodies we are quite ignorant. If any portion
of classical music survived the ruin of the Roman
empire, and the irruptions of the north-eastern
hordes which achieved that ruin, it is most likely
to be found in the Gregorian chants, which may
be relics of Grecian or Roman recitative. Of this,
however, we may be certain, that of such music
as has come down to us by tradition the whole is
melody. There are no traditional harmonies.
Singing " in parts," or anti-phonic singing, there
certainly was. Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, de-
scribing the early Christian worship, says of their
singing hymns, " inter sese invicem canentes."
But by this is only meant different persons in turn
taking different parts. With modern counterpoint
it has nothing to do.

Such traditional music as we know consists,

270

NATIONAL MELODY.

then, of melodies ; but if we inquire into the his-
tory of the nations who possess the most of these
traditionary airs, we shall find good reasons for
attributing them, not to Greek or Roman, but to
Celtic origin. Where are the national airs and
ballads of Europe to be found? not in the flat or
champaign countries, from which the aborigines
have been driven, but in the mountain fastnesses,
or remote islands, where relics of that former race
remain. In Scotland, in Wales, in Ireland, in
Sicily, in Spain, in Switzerland. It is from these
countries that we derive those exquisite airs, of
which the date and composers are equally un-
known ; but which have lived in the hearts of the
people, and been handed down by the force of tra-
ditional feeling alone, without notation, without
score, without vehicle, save the enthusiasm of the
poetic and excitable race who originated and pre-
served them. As to this matter, there can be little
doubt. The Anglo-Saxon has no " national"
music ; or at least none deserving of the name.
The modern Gaul is equally destitute. In Ger-
many, if any is to be found, we must go to the
Tyrol, or towards the Swiss cantons. In Italy,
Calabria is the likely field. In these districts
some remains of the ancient Celtic inhabitants
probably yet linger ; and with the race the music
lingers also.

Thus, if these observations be founded in truth,
music, before the mediaeval invention of counter-
point, must have been a science totally different
from that which now bears the name. In fact, it
seems clear that this music must have been alto-
gether lyric, and from the first wedded to song ;
for if we analyze these airs of the olden time, we
shall find them to be nothing more nor less than
poetic versions of passion in sound — just as songs
(properly so called) are poetic versions of passion
in words. It is essential to the poetical song that
it shall be expressive of some passion or strong
feeling, or mixture of feelings. It is essential to
the musical song that it shall do the same ; for
the feeling of the one must accompany, step by
step, the feeling of the other ; and the union of
the two constitutes a song that " will sing."

Here the reader may probably ask how, and by
what means, and upon what principle, the music-
al song or melody is to be made expressive of pas-
sion or feeling ? This is a very natural question ;
for if it be not fully and satisfactorily answered,
the foregoing observations would be destitute of
meaning or propriety. The principle upon which
expressive melodies are expressive, is, however,
perfectly capable of being demonstrated ; and to
this demonstration we shall now apply ourselves.
All human passions, in all nations and in all
states of society, are associated with certain into-
nations of voice, which all men recognize. Thus
wTe know at once, by the tones, without at all
hearing what he says, whether a man be angry or
not. The tones of rage are nearly the same in all
countries. In the same way we can at once dis-
tinguish the tone of grief, or of entreaty, or of
deprecation, or of irony and sneer, or of fear, or

of affection, or of hate. To all these feelings and
passions nature has affixed certain intonations of
voice ; and the " great actor" is the man who has
the nicest perception of these characteristic marks,
and can imitate them with the greatest perfection.
Such is the law of nature ; and upon this law the
laws of expressive melody are built. An expres-
sive melody is neither more nor less than a poet-
ical exaggeration or heightening of these natural
intonations, put into regular metre ; just as the
song is a poetical version of the words in which
passion or feeling is expressed, reduced also un-
der metrical rule. The union of the two makes
the perfect lyric ; for true lyrical music requires
true lyrical poetry. We are not giving this defi-
nition of an " expressive air," without reflecting
that further proof of the truth of that which we
affirm is, or may be at least, necessary. How do
you show (we may be asked) that a tune or air to
be expressive must have reference to these intona-
tions 1 We answer, the proof is in an appeal to
experience and the actual fact ; and better proof
than this it is impossible to have. Let any one.
for instance, fix upon some song, the words of
which are admitted to be highly expressive of
some marked feeling or passion, and which words
have been written to accord with an expressive
air. Let any one, for example, take Moore's
beautiful lyric of " Go where glory waits thee,"
or that exquisitely tender effusion of Burns, " Wilt
thou be my dearie?" The words of these com-
positions are deeply redolent, one of a perfect de-
votion mixed with regret ; the other of a tender-
ness that cannot be surpassed. This is admitted
Now, then, let some reader, who really can read
such poetry — we do not mean " a robustious, per-
riwig-pated fellow who tears a passion to rags and
tatters" — nor yet a lifeless bit of humanity who
mutters forth verse as if it were a paragraph from
the Morning Post — but a good, natural, and judi
cious reader ; let such a reader recite aloud these
compositions, and let the rise and fall of his voice
be noted from a piano-forte, and what shall be the
result? This it will be — that the natural risings
and fallings of the reader's intonations accord, in a
certain ratio, with those of the tune in question ;
one only being a poetical exaggeration of the oth
er, and ascending or descending by means of much
greater intervals. Such is the foundation and
such are the principles of expressive melody ;
and so true are these principles that, from the very
words of an eloquent lyric, an air has been con-
structed, singularly similar to that for which it
was written, by one who never happened to hear
the original tune. The writer of this article hav-
ing once fortuitously asserted the possibility of
such a result to the gifted man whose poetical
works form its subjects, was immediately assured
by him that he himself had, in one instance, done
this. The song was one of Burns' ; and it was
written for a Highland air, which at that time Mr.
Cunningham had not heard. The air was, we
believe, named " Morag." By imitating uncon-
sciously the intonations proper to the words, he

NATIONAL MELODY.

271

constructed for himself a tune so similar, that when
he at length became acquainted with the original,
the coincidence struck him with astonishment.
The result, curious as it certainly is, may be easi-
ly accounted for on the principles here described,
though hardly upon any other.

From what we have said, it is easy to deduce
that the existing music, of which we have any
knowledge, prior to the invention and diffusion of
the science of counterpoint or harmony, must have
been composed by a class of persons altogether
different from those whom modern times delight to
honor as " musical composers." They must have
been, in fact, men of deep feeling, vivid fancy,
and most refined perceptions — in short, poets ;
though perhaps only musically so — poets of sound.
The earlier words to which their effusions were
adapted, have all probably perished ; but there is
that in the compositions themselves, and in the
mode of their tradition from generation to genera-
tion, which stamps them as the offspring of poetic
feeling and fancy of the finest quality. They are,
of all music, in reality, least "of the earth —
earthy." With their construction mathematics
have had nothing to do. They appeal, not to the
ear — but through the ear — as the porter's lodge
only leads to the mansion — to the finer faculties
of the human intellect. Being founded in natural
emotion, they have found a ready way to the
heart ; and it is this alone that has embalmed
them in the traditions of nations, and preserved
them amid the vicissitudes of tide and time. They
have had, in truth, nothing but this upon which to
rest. The names of those who composed them
have, in many and most cases, been lost in neg-
lect. They were not the work of men dressed
in gowns and wigs — university graduates — with
" Mus. Doct." stuck at the end of their names ;
but of the simple denizens of a wild country ; yet
have they survived, whilst the long and elaborate
" scores" of many a famous " Maestro" have moul-
dered amid the darkness of an unpitying and un-
ceremonious oblivion. That nothing but the
natural truth and poesy of these strains has pre-
served them, must be admitted, for in what other
way can we account for their preservation ? Yet
one exception must, perhaps, be taken. It seems
evident that some of the ancient ballads of most
countries that possess any, have been more of
" chants" than lyrics ; and have lived perhaps in
virtue of the historic legends with which they are
connected. This has probably been the case with
some of the ballads of the Scottish Border : such
as " Hardyknute," " Bewick and Graham,"
" Chevy Chase," and " Johnnie Fa', the Gypsy
Laddie." They are mostly of one part or strain
only, with more monotony than expression ; in
short, more of chants than airs. They are in-
debted for permanence, in part, to the tales with
which they are indissolubly connected. These,
however, are only trifling exceptions. Whether
we look at the really ancient lyrics of Ireland,
Wales, Scotland, Spain, Sicily, or Switzerland,
we shall find them owe their immortality to na-

ture and to poetry, and to nothing else. If, too,
we turn to the memoirs of men of genius, we shall
find such of them as had "music in their soul"
giving the preference to the simpler strains of an
older time. What says Shakespeare 1

Mark it. Caesario. It is old and plain.

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,

And the free maids that weave their thread with

bones,
Do use to chant it. It is silly sooth :
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.

From Coleridge and other poets we could quote
passages very similar. Swift, who in all human
probability selected those tunes which gave so sin-
gular an interest to the " Beggar's Opera," had
the same predilection. Of Rousseau's notion of
music and musicians we shall speak shortly. Na-
poleon insisted to Cherubini that a simple expres-
sive air was the soul of all music ; and Byron leaned
to the same opinion. It would be easy to multi-
ply examples, if more were wanted.

Such was the music of those men and of those
times, to whom, and to which, harmonic science
was unknown. The invention, or rather the dis-
covery of counterpoint, however, totally changed
all this. Music was not, till then, deemed to be
a science, but a natural gift, in common with
poetry. Men no more thought that the compo-
sition of an eloquent and thrilling air, breathing
poetry and passion in every note, was a thing to
be taught and learned, than they thought the com-
position of an Iliad or an iEneid was to be taught
and learned. The adage of " Poeta nascitur, non
fit," was applied to the musician as well as to the
bard. The two, in fact, were sometimes, nay
often, united. Out of the musical exercises of
the church, however, a great change arose ; and
this change was the evolvement of the laws and
science of harmonics. This discovery, it can
hardly be doubted, arose out of congregational
singing. Hymns were sung by many voices ; and
it was found, first, that the body of sound thus ob-
tained, in itself produced, by its very mass and
magnitude, that sublime effect so nobly described
by the poet of " Paradise Lost," as —

Hallelujahs, like the sound of seas,
From multitudes that sung

And, next, that mixture of certain voices, not in
unison, but having certain intervals between them,
produced effects which, to persons of a certain
temperament of nerves, were highly delightful,
and added, in the case of such persons, very much
to the entire effect of the composition sung. Fur-
ther inquiry into the causes of these effects gave
rise, beyond question, to the discovery of the mod-
ern science of music ; to counterpoint ; to the in-
vestigation of the natural laws and foundations of
harmony ; the divisions of the musical scale ; and
the study of " thorough bass," and all that is
now termed musical science. That this was a
great and interesting discovery nobody can doubt ;
but, at the same time, all persons capable of reflec-

272

NATIONAL MELODY.

tion must see that it added to the music that was
before practised much of a totally distinct and
heterogeneous character ; and led persons to the
study and composition of musical pieces, who, with-
out this discovery, would never have dreamed of it.
Music was henceforth termed, and in part really
became, a " science." It was connected, thence-
forward, with mathematics. It was no longer the
exclusive gift of men of poetical genius. Men of
another class altogether, often the reverse of po-
etical, rushed in, and in vast numbers. Music
now, instead of being in the attire of a muse, was
dressed in a wig and gown. She had apartments
at the universities, and

Budge doctors of the stoic fur

were her professors and cultivators ! The ear and
nervous system were appealed to more than the
intellect. Men whose duller brains and grosser
sensibilities would never have apprehended the
more intellectual refinements and ethereal prin-
ciples of musical expression, properly so called,
were acted upon at once by the new harmonics,
and all the accompaniments they brought in their
train. Language became in time changed. Peo-
ple no longer talked of having " a soul for music,"
but of having " an ear for music." They, in fact,
found more congenial entertainment at the porter's
lodge than at the old mansion, and they stopped
and revelled there ! Melody fled before the thun-
der of the organ, the crash of the orchestra, and
the roar of the chorus. They frightened her, ten-
der thing, (and well they might) nearly out of her
wits. She was confused and deafened, and nearly
silenced. What wonder ? Let any man look at
the " fugues," the " motets," the " symphonies,"
the " sanctuses," the " rondeaux," the " madri-
gals," the " choruses," and the " requiems," com-
posed by the early harmonic doctors, as given by
Doctor Burney and others, and then say what
chance either poetry or expressive and passionate
melody had, amidst the din ! Even people " with
an ear" must have been sometimes astonished in
those days ; so strange, and really disagreeable,
are many of the mediaeval harmonies, and chords,
and combinations. Some of the fugues are per-
fect " mazes" for people to lose themselves in,
like the " Maze" at Hampton Court. So intricate
are they, that no mortal ear can follow them. Of
the same absurdly complicated character are many
of the other " movements" of the musicians of that
time. In fact, they are a sort of " puzzle" in
sound, musical conundrums, rebuses, charades, and
enigmas, for the organ, the fiddle, or the virginal !
The masculine and hard-hearted Queen Elizabeth
was said to be an adept at this species of music ;
and it is certainly in harmony, at all events, with
much of her character.

Thus were totally new elements and a totally
new set of associates introduced into the depart-
ment of music ; and from the effects of .the
temporary victory which sound, no doubt, then
achieved over sense, we firmly believe we are suf-
fering to this day. Better taste has unquestion-

ably prevailed at length over the musical monstros-
ities of the mediaeval composers ; but that the
cultivation of expressive melody, properly so called,
has been injured by this avalanche of noise we have
no doubt. Many of the excrescences of the new
mathematical harmonists still cling, like ivy, round
modern music, to the great detriment of its growth
and health ; and when it is considered how far the
persons with " an ear for music," outnumber
the persons with " a soul for music," we cannot
wonder that musical platitudes are still perpe-
trated.

It must be recollected that the discovery of
counterpoint gave, for a long period, a complete
ascendency to a class of persons who were, many
of them, totally destitute of any feeling for expres-
sion in an air. For centuries the majority of the
musical world were of this class. They far out-
numbered the other class ; and perhaps they do
so still. Nor must the reader suppose that this
classification is any innovation or invention of ours.
Rousseau, long ago, divided the musical commu-
nity into three classes, as we do. He described
the first as a class with a nice ear for harmonies,
but with little or no appreciation of true melody ;
the second, as fewer in number, consisting of per-
sons devoted to expressive melody, but with little
nicety of ear for harmony. His third class was
made of the few persons who unite an " ear" and
a " soul" for music. These distinctions we be-
lieve to be founded in fact and in nature ; and
if the first class obtain an ascendency over the
others, it is surely easy to trace the necessary re-
sults. It is easy to anticipate what musical com-
position must be in the hands of a man of Rous-
seau's first class. To such a man harmony would
be everything and meaning nothing ; a song would
be merely an arbitrary succession of musical notes,
disposed to suit a certain measure. In short, it
would be metre without meaning ; and bear the
same relation to an expressive air, that Latin non-
nense-hexameters, made at school, do to the poetry
of Virgil or Lucretius. As minds totally destitute
of poetical feeling are delighted with acrostics and
enigmas, and distichs that will read either back-
wards or forwards, such as —

Deem if I meed,
Dear madam Read !

so musicians of this class were sure to be delighted
with catches, fugues, and harmonic conundrums,
which might be played either upwards or down-
wards, or backwards or forwards. And such, in
the earlier reign of the contrapuntists, was ac-
tually the case. Dr. Burney, in his History of
Music, gives many examples of musical puzzles,
or rather conceits of that age, which might be so
executed ! These tasteless monstrosities, no doubt,
after some time, became unfashionable, and were
cast into the oblivion they so well deserved. But
they had their day ; nor was it a very short one.
One of the earliest English scientific composers, who
first set the example of a better taste, was prob-
ably " Master Henry Lawes," whose airs seem to

NATIONAL MELODY.

273

have pleased Milton so much. It is hardly pos-
sible to suppose the strains which could affect the
mind of such a man as the author of the Paradise
Lost, of Comus, and of Lycidas, could have been
" harsh and crabbed" — like the intricate scores
of " Bull" or " Blow ;" albeit they might not be
quite

As musical as is Apollo's lute.

Italy too broke loose from the mathematical
shackles. In the sonatas and other movements
of Corelli and Geminiani — and nearer our times
of Cimarosa and Paesiello, melody begins to as-
sume her sway. Nor is there any reason to doubt
that some of the modern Italian composers have
been indebted to the ancient expressive melodies
of their own country. Amongst other instances
we may mention that the Italian aria, so well known
in this country under the designation of " Hope
told a flattering tale !" is founded on an old Sicil-
ian ballad.

That to a pure English taste, the best of the pas-
sionate melodies of Italy, and also of the German
composers, appear extravagant and decidedly " the-
atrical," we must admit. But this admission
must be held to be mitigated by the consideration
that the music of all countries must necessarily be
modified by the character of the language ; and
that the intonations of the fervid Italian must be
expected to impart a portion of its emphatic and
often impassioned violence to the molodies of his
nation. Be this as it may, however, it is easy to
discover throughout the whole range of modern
composition traces of the mischief wrought by the
barbarous taste of the earliest harmonists, and the
strange musical platitudes in which they indulged.
The poetical expression of melody is indeed ac-
knowledged, by more modern writers on music ;
such as Burney, Avison, &c. ; but we are per-
petually startled by the most forced and fantastical
efforts to produce it. Sometimes the imitations
are childishly literal. The lower keys are set on
the rumble for thunder, and the higher are made
to ;' pip-pop" like drops of rain. Sometimes the
analogy is purely arbitrary ; as in " the Creation"
of Haydn, where a strain commencing pianissimo,
and gradually rising to fortissimo, is held to rep-
resent the gradual diffusion of light. Sometimes,
in order to produce effect, sudden and unnatural
changes of key are resorted to. Some of the best
and most successful imitations even of the older
melody are discoverable from this ; as, for instance,
the fine ballad air of "Auld Robin Gray ;" which,
from the alteration in the key at the commence-
ment of the second strain, we always held to be a
modern composition ; and which Mr. Wilson, in
his entertaining notes, informs us it actually is.
And lastly, we have the most flagrant viola-
tions of propriety in long "cadences," which
players and singers of solos perpetually introduce
at the pauses, and which violate all unity of mean-
ing or feeling, for the sake of showing off the sci-
ence of the player or singer. Handel, who had
high notions of expression in his own line of com-

CCLXXIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 18

position, is said to have been so nettled by one of
these interpolations by Dubourg, that when the
violinist, after a hundred modulations, had at last
worked himself back to the original key, the great
composer, out of patience with the impertinence,
ironically took off his hat, and making a low bow,
exclaimed, " Sare, you are welcome home again,
goot Maistre Dubourg!" Of such things what
can candor say but " let them be reformed alto-
gether."

We have gone thus minutely into this nice sub-
ject, because, unless we know what lyrical music
really ought to be, we can never understand in
what resides the difficulty of lyric poetry. Per-
sons are in the habit of imagining a song to be
a mere copy of verses — no notion can be more
mistaken. It is the essence of lyric poesy that it
must express passion, feeling, or emotion, either
simple or mixed. It must also express this in a
peculiar way. The feeling intended must pre-
dominate in every stanza, and, which is still more
difficult, the verbal expression must be strongest
in the exact place where the musical expression
is most marked and emphatic. In short, the ex-
pression of the language must be, as it were, the
counterpart of that of the melody. They must
fit each other like the two parts of a " tally."

Where the emotions to be expressed are of a
mixed character, this is preeminently a difficulty,
inasmuch as the changes in the poetry must be
brought about precisely at the point where they
occur in the melody. If any reader wishes for
an illustration of what we say, let him examine
Moore's song of " the Prince's day" — one of the
Irish melodies. The air is generally known by
the name of " St. Patrick's-day." It is a lively
and joy-inspiring air ; but, as is usual in the mel-
odies of Ireland, suddenly lapses at one passage
into a touch of deep melancholy, which is as
quickly overcome by the prevailing sentiment of
the tune. It will be seen that Mr. Moore has hit
this singular and touching mutation exactly, and
that his words are as true a counterpart to the
tune as can be conceived. The verbal and the
melodious poetry are in exact unison ; and thus
far, as a lyric, it is perfection. From these con-
siderations it is easy to see why the writing
of a truly good song has been achieved by so few
poets of any time or country. If we take the
songs of Burns and the melodies of Moore, we have
the only bodies of lyrical poetry ever achieved in
these realms. There are, no doubt, various scat-
tered songs of high excellence in the language.
Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, Miss
Blamire, Lady Anne Lindsay, Macneil, Tannahill
and Anderson of Cumberland, with many others
whose names we do not recapitulate, have written
scattered lyrics of great merit ; but they are few
and far between. Neither must the admirers of
Burns imagine that we mean to put the lyre of
Moore in competition with that of the inspired
peasant — for that is hardly too strong a word.
In many of the requisites of poetry the effusions
of Mr. Moore are far inferior. They bear the

274

NATIONAL MELODY.

traces of artifice. They show the marks of the
file ; and, worst of all, they want the " national-
ity" of Burns. Moore's melodies might have
been written at one of the fashionable club-houses
in St. James'-street. They are, however, beau-
tifully pointed, flowing and elegant ; always
steeped in feeling ; and, above all, are exquisite-
ly adapted to the airs, which Moore has touched
with all the truth of the real poet, and all the
feeling of the true musician. Such are the foun-
dations upon which rests the art of lyrical poetry ;
and such the tests which we apply to it. By
these we mean to judge of the lyrical efforts of
the certainly gifted person whose name gives an
interest to this article, not its own.

The late Allan Cunningham was one of those
men of genius, whose aspirings were unquestion-
ably derived from their intense admiration of the
muse of Robert Burns. That Cunningham lighted
the torch of his poesy at that of the gifted plough-
man of Ayrshire cannot be doubted ; but we may
add that, in our opinion, he is the brightest star
of that galaxy of which Burns is the centre.
Deriving much of his peculiar manner from a con-
templation of the works of his great prototype,
he is not an imitator in any servile sense of the
word, but stands forth an original poet, upon the
pedestal of his own fine and ardent intellect.
Next to Cunningham, perhaps, comes the Ettrick
Shepherd ; but to the poetry of the former we
must award the preference. There is, in almost
every effort of Hogg, an inequality, and often a
coarseness, from which the poems of Cunning-
ham are free. As lyrists, both of them are far
below their great leader, Burns ; but such songs
as Cunningham has written are better than those
of Hogg. We may say the same of Cunning-
ham's Ballads, (a much inferior species of compo-
sition,) most of which are exquisite, and will
bear a comparison with the few ballads (proper)
which Burns has written. We have already
stated that with the exception of the exquisite
Burns and the living Thomas Moore, neither
Great Britain nor Ireland has produced a great
song-writer. Before the time of Burns, the com-
positions that passed for songs in England, such
as those of Carew, Suckling, Prior, &c, were
merely elegant and witty, or prettily pointed
copies of verses. The rest were mere insipid-
ities moulded into metre, without one requisite
of " song" but the name. Within the rigid line
we have drawn, as to song-writers, we cannot
admit Allan Cunningham. He has written a few
real and beautiful lyrics ; that is unquestionable.
But his lyrics in the mass must class as ballads
and not as songs, exquisite as most of them are in
poetry and in feeling. Allan Cunningham has
fallen short as a lyrical writer, in the same way
that other aspirants to this difficult species of
writing have failed. He has not been sufficiently
steeped in the music to which he ought to have
written. In this lay the excellence of Burns.
The air, with him, inspired the song. He
"crooned" over it, until his inflammable soul

caught fire ; and in this way his inimitable lyrics
had birth. The inspiration of Burns was through
the ear. That of Moore is evidently the same.
Other song-writers have written to the eye ; and
a set of verses written to the eye, no matter
by whom, can only turn out to be a song by
mere accident. The ballad is less difficult. It
has less dependence upon its air. The union
between the two is less intimate. The ballad-
tune partakes more of the nature of a chant,
than of an air, and the ancient ones are all
of one single strain. In ballad writing, we
are inclined to place Allan Cunningham in the
van of Scotch poets. In this line he need not
fear a comparison with Burns ; for in this Burns
has done little, and he has done much. Let him,
however, speak for himself. The admirable
strains of the " Lords Marie," and of " Bonnie
Lady Anne," have been so often quoted, that we
pass them over, as familiar to many of our read-
ers. The following, however, which purports to
be a relic of times of " the Covenant," is less
known.

Thou hast sworn by thy God, my Jeannie,

By that pretty white hand o' thine,
And by a' the lowing stars in heav'n,

That thou wad ay be mine !
And I hae sworn by my God, my Jeannie,

And by that kind heart o' thine,
By a' the stars sown thick owre heav'n,

That thou shalt ay be mine !

Then foul fa' the hands wad loose sic bands,

And the heart that wad part sic love ;
But there 's nae hand can loose the band

Save the finger o' God above.
Tho' the wee wee cot maun be my bield,

An' my claithing e'er sae mean,
I wad lap me up rich i' the faulds o' love,

Heav'n's armfu' o' my Jean !

Her white arm wad be a pillow to me,

Fu' safter than the down ;
And love wad winnow owre us his kind kind wings,

An sweetly I 'd sleep an' soun'.
Come here to me, thou lass o' my love,

Come here an' kneel wi' me ;
The mornin is fu' o' the presence o' God,

An' I canna pray but thee.

The morn-wind is sweet mang the beds o' new
flow'rs,

The wee birds sing kindly on hie,
Our gude-man leans o'er his kail-yard dyke,

And a blythe auld bodie is he.
The book maun be ta'en when the carle comes hame,

Wi' the holy psalmodie ;
An' thou maun speak o' me to thy God,

An' I will speak o' thee !

This is a most touching and beautiful strain ;
but it is, perhaps, inferior t^, three simple stanzas
that follow it ; they are supposed to be the last
words murmured by a child lost in the snow, ere
its eyes are closed m the deep sleep of death by
cold.

Gane were but the winter cauld,
An" gane were but the snaw,

I could sleep in the wild woods
Where primroses blaw.

NATIONAL MELODY.

275

Cauld 's the snaw at my head,

And cauld at my feet,
The finger o' death 's at my een,

Closing them to sleep.

Let nane tell my father

Or my mither sae dear,
I '11 meet them baith in heav'n

At the spring o' the year.

Here is a simple pathos never excelled ; but
of all Mr. Cunningham's lyrics, the most pre-
eminently poetical is, perhaps, the " Mermaid of
Galloway." We hardly know anything in bal-
lad with which to compare it. It is far superior
to Scott's " Glenfinla's," and even more wildly
fanciful than Hogg's "Kilmenie;" as a tale of
unearthly terror, it may stand beside the "Ancient
Mariner" of Coleridge. The story is as old as that
of the sirens ; but never was it so told. A young
and ardent chieftain on the wild coasts of Gal-
loway is lured by the strains, and next by the
blandishments of a mer-maiden to a mysterious
death. He first hears her strain in the woods on
a moonlight summer-night. Beautiful are they,
but not earthly, and their effects are not of earth.

I' the second lilt of that sweet sang

Of sweetness it was sae fu',
The tod leapt out frae the frighted lambs,

An' dighted his red-wat mou'.

I' the very third lilt o' that sweet sang,

Red lowed the new-woke moon :
The stars drapp'd bludeon the yellow gowan tap

Sax miles that maiden roun'.

The " young Cowehill" cannot resist the magic
influences of the melody ; and in spite of the
warnings of his page, he hurries down to the
shore, to see and speak to the creature wrho can
produce such strains. He finds a beautiful and
artful woman in appearance, and to her blandish-
ments he becomes a ready victim, newly wed as
he is.

But first come take me 'neath the chin,

An' syne come kiss my cheek ;
An' spread my hanks o' wat'ry hair

I' the new-moon beam to dreep.

Sae first he kissed her dimpled chin,

Syne kissed her rosy cheek,
An' lang he woo'd her willin lips,

Like heather-hinnie sweet !

The fate of the rash and unfortunate youth is
quickly sealed. Nothing can be more striking
than the stanzas descriptive of the sad catastrophe.

She tied ae link of her wet yellow hair

Aboon his burnin bree,
Amang his curling hafFet locks

She knotted knurles three.

She weav'd owre his brow the white lilie,
Wi1 witch-knots mae than nine ;

" Gif ye were seven times bridegroom owre,
This night ye shall be mine."

O ! twice he turned his sinking head,

An' twice he lifted his ee ;
0 ! twice he sought to loose the links

Were knotted owre his bree.

The remainder is soon told. The rash and
erring " young Cowehill" is no more seen, and
his young bride mourns in the bridal chamber. At
the dead hour of midnight, " when night and
morning meet" —

There was a cheek touch'd that lady's,

Cauld as the marble stane ;
An1 a hand cauld as the drifting snaw

Was laid on her breast-bane.

" O ! cauld is thy hand, dear Willie ;

O ! cauld, cauld is thy cheek ;
An' wring these locks o' yellow hair

Frae which the cauld drops dreep."

" O! seek anither bridegroom, Marie,
On these bosom-faulds to sleep ;

My bride is the yellow water-lilie,
Its leaves my bridal sheet!"

The poet's youngest son, to whom we owe
this publication of his father's poems and songs,
has, we see, divided them into three series. We
have first the ballads. Next the poems and mis-
cellaneous verses. Last, and best, the songs.
This distribution is a judicious one ; but our
young friend's success in the division has not been
quite equal to his good sense in determining so to
divide his matter. In sooth it was a difficult and
delicate task ; and, in our humble notion, some
one or two of the effusions, classed as miscellane-
ous, might have been better classed amongst the
ballads ; such, for instance, as " Gordon of Brack-
ley ;" whilst others, perhaps, might take rank as
songs ; as why not the " Farewell to Dalswin-
ton;" through every stanza of which one feeling
flows? The first-mentioned strain is, in our no-
tion, one of the most spirited ballads ever achieved
by the genius of the poet. It is full of fire ; and
we regret that our limits do not permit us to give
the whole of it. The story is a sad one. The
false spouse of" Gordon of Brackley" is beloved
by Inveraye and returns his unlawful passion.
The guilty pair contrive his death. Inveraye
comes before the gate of Brackley castle and in-
sults Gordon, who, having a slender retinue, hesi-
tates to attack the well-attended traitor Inveraye ;
the ballad opening thus :

Down Dee side came Inveraye

Whistling and playing ;
And call'd loud at Brackley gate

Ere day was dawning.

" Come, Gordon of Brackley,
Proud Gordon, come down ;

A sword 's at your threshold
Mair sharp than your own !"

Gordon, who is almost alone, declines the chal-
lenge, until stung to madness by his treacherous
partner.

Arise all my maidens

With roke and with fan ;
How blest had I been

Had I married a man.
Arise all my maidens,

Take buckler and sword ;
Go, milk the ewes, Gordon,

And I shall be lord !

276

NATIONAL MELODY.

The generous chieftain, touched to the quick by
this insidious appeal, rushes on his fate, having
first kissed and taken leave of the traitress, who
sends him to his contrived doom. The ballad
thus touchingly concludes : —

" 0 ! cam ye by Brackley,

And what saw ye there ?
Was his young widow weeping

And tearing her hair?"
" I came in by Brackley,

I came in, and oh !
There was mirth, there was feasting,

But nothing of woe.

" As a rose bloom'd the lady

And blythe as a bride ;
Like a bridegroom bold Inveraye

Smil'd at her side.
And she feasted him there

As she ne'er feasted lord,
Though the blood of her husband

Was moist on his sword !"

There 's grief in the cottage,

And tears in the ha',
For the gay, gallant Gordon

That 's dead and awa'.
To the bush comes the bird ;

And the flow'r to the plain ;
But the good and the brave

They come never again.

We now come to the songs, properly so called,
As in a galaxy, it is by no means easy to fix upon
"some bright particular star," and award it the
preference ; so where almost all is beautiful, se-
lection is not easy. Of the songs which Cun-
ningham has thrown off, perhaps the finest are
those relating to the sea and maritime adventure.
From the ocean and its changes, its waves and
its winds ; its wildest frowns and most deceitful
smiles ; he seemed ever to derive inspiration.
Throughout the entire range of his works, whether
they be verse or prose, let him catch sight of the
waste of waters, whether it be the Northmen's
sea ploughed by the " Vikings," or his own

Solway, white with foam, and sunshine, and sea-
mews,

(a line in itself transcendantly descriptive,) his
genius at once rises, and soars a higher flight,
upon stronger wing. That first-rate sea-song, "A
Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea," has been so often
quoted and praised, that we shall pass it by, and
turn to Song xliii., and effusion which ought to
be fitted to some old air —

Wild as the waves
And winds, to which 't is kin ;

such as that known by the style and title of " The
Lowlands of Holland," or that which goes, on the
banks of Tyne, by the name of " Captain Bover."

THE PIRATE'S SONG.

O lady, come to the Indies with me,
And reign and rule on the sunny sea ;
My ship 's a palace, my deck 's a throne,
And all shall be thine the sun shines on.

A gallant ship and a boundless sea,
A piping wind and the foe on our lee ;
My pennon streaming so gay from the mast,
My cannon flashing all bright and fast.

The Bourbon lilies wax wan as I sail ;
America's stars I strike them pale :
The glories of sea and the grandeur of land,
All shall be thine for a wave of thy hand.

Thy shining locks are worth Java's isle :
Can the spices of Saba buy thy smile'?
Let kings rule earth by a right divine,
Thou shalt be queen of the fathomless brine.

This is a song in truth .and in spirit. The senti-
ment of a reckless exultation in lawless power
pervades every stanza, and breathes in almost
every line. It is never overborne by description,
the ordinary fault of ordinary attempts at this
species of composition. The simple light-hearted-
ness of the following is as different from the wild
and reckless exultation of the first as gayety is
from madness. It reminds one of the beautiful
pastoral of Burns, " Now westlin winds" — and
might be, and probably ought to be, affixed to the

The lav'rock dried his wings i' the sun,

Aboon the bearded barley,
When a shepherd lad to my window came

Wi' me to haud a parley.
" 0 are ye sleeping, my lovesome lass,

And dreamin of love I ferlie ;
Arise and come to the heights wi' me,

Amang the dews sae pearlie."

First I pat on my jupes o' green,

An' kilted my coaties rarely,
An'- dipt my feet in the May-morn dew,

An' gade wi' mithsome Charlie.
It 's swreet to be waken'd by one we love,

By night or morning early :
It 's sweet to be woo'd as forth we walk

By the lad whom we love dearly.

The sun he raise — an better raise ;

An' owre the hill lowed rarely ;
The wee lark sung — and higher sung

Amang the bearded barley.
He woo'd sae lang on the sunny knowe-side,

Where the gowans' heads hang pearlie,
That the tod broke in to the bughted-lambs,

And left my lad fu' barely.

Allan, with all his sentimentality and wild poetry,
had no small snatch of dry humor in his com-
position, and, when he chose it, could be " a bit
of a wag." Of this perilous gift one or two of
the songs in this collection afford proofs. We
allude more especially to that specimen of true
Scottish humor, yclept " Tarn Bo, Tarn Bo." In
the hands of Mr. Wilson it would, we think, bid
fair to rival that " Laird o' Cockpen" which he
has rendered so popular, even in high places !
The song is long, however, and our space is short,
and we must not quote it — not to say that the
" gude braid Scots" is, in one or two passages, a
leetle too " braid" for the gravity of this publication.
No such objection, however, applies to the follow-
ing jeu cT esprit, which is no bad specimen of

NATIONAL MELODY.

277

Cunningham's lighter vein : and with it we shall
conclude, as in duty bound, our quotations.

ALLAN A MAUT.

Gude Allan a Maut lay on the rigg,
Ane called him bear, ane called him bigg ;
An auld wife slipp'd on her glasses — " aha !
He '11 wauken (quo' she) we' joy to us a !"
The sun shone out, down dropt the rain,
He laugh'd as he came to life again ;
An' carles an' carlines sang, wha saw 't,
" Gude luck to your rising, Allan a Maut."

Gude Allan a Maut grew green and rank,
Wi' a golden beard and a shapely shank ;
An' rose sae steeve, and wax'd sae stark,
That he whomled the maid an' coupit the dark ;
The sick and lame leapt hale and weel ;
The faint of heart grew firm as steel ;
The douce nae mair thought mirth a faut ;
" Sic charms are mine" — quo' Allan a Maut.

Such are the lyrics of Allan Cunningham : and
we believe we shall meet with few dissentients
when we say that they are the best of his poetical
works. His longer poems, " Sir Marmaduke
Maxwell" and the " Maid of Elvar," are each
defective as a whole, although they embody pas-
sages of great poetical power and beauty. He
wanted something of the art of properly construct-
ing and skilfully conducting a story, and hence
both his longer poetical pieces and his novels lack
an interest which all their other merits, and they
are many, cannot give them.

We learn from the modest and too brief me-
moir of Mr. Peter Cunningham, the poet's young-
est son — to whom the public is indebted for this
little volume, that his gifted parent was born at
Blackwood, near Dumfries, in 1784. He was
brought up to the trade of a stone-mason, but soon
became distinguished for his remarkable talents in
the vicinity of the place of his birth. Having
been applied to by Mr. Cromek, who was engaged
in collecting remains of ancient ballads of Ayr-
shire and Galloway, Mr. Cunningham soon fur-
nished that gentleman with various specimens from
Nithsdale and the dales of the adjoining county,
which he took or effected to take for genuine re-
mains of Border poetry. These Mr. Cromek
published in a volume, with annotations, under the
title of " Relics of Nithsdale and Galloway Song."
Amongst them are the Mermaid of Galloway,
Bonnie Lady Anne, Carlisle Yette, the Lord's
Marie, the Lass o' Prestonhill, and others of Cun-
ningham's most exquisite ballads. Competent
judges, however, speedily detected the " ruse,"
ingeniously as it was managed. Bishop Percy de-
clared the ballads too beautiful to be ancient. Sir
Walter Scott shook his head in utter incredulity.
The Ettrick Shepherd pronounced them at once
to be the work of Cunningham ; and last, but not
least, Professor Wilson asserted the truth in
a critique published in Blackwood's Magazine.

When the fact became known, it at once estab-
lished the poet's fame as a man of genius : a
character which his varied works have confirmed.
For some time after the publication of the " Rel-
ics," by Cromek, the author was employed by
some of the London journals ; but his latter years
were passed in the service of Sir Francis Chantry,
an early and attached friend of the poet. Allan
Cunningham died, October, 20th, 1842, and was
buried at the cemetery at Kensall-green, where
his last resting place is marked by a tomb of solid
granite, erected by his widow and five surviving
children. The profile which adorns the title-page
of the present volume is a striking likeness, as far
as features are concerned. His remarkably fine
and brilliant or rather lustrous eye, is however
wanting to complete the portrait. Mr. Cunning-
ham's manners were simple and unaffected ; his
conversation racy, manly, and enthusiastic, when
the topic excited him ; nor was a snatch of dry,
sarcastic humor wanting, when the occasion re-
quired it. We have said that his lyrics were
written without sufficient reference to the music
to which they ought to be adapted ; but we do not
mean to say that Allan Cunningham had not a high
appreciation of the melodies of his country. On
the contrary, we have seen the stirring appeal of
some of those airs fill his eyes with unbidden
dew, and enchain his nature as by a spell of power.
His sensibilities were, however, more excited by
the gentler and more pastoral than by the more
passionate of the old airs of Scotland ; and, to the
last, he preferred the airs of " Tweedside" and
the " Bush aboon Traquair" to the deeper pathos
of melodies such as " Gilderoy," or the spirit-
stirring tones of such strains as " Bruce's Address
to his Troops." In truth, his love of picturesque
and romantic scenery was stronger than his love
of pathos ; and this is apparent in the finest of
his effusions, some of which will live as long as
Scotland has a literature or a name.

Of the other volume, which helps to introduce
these remarks, we need only say, that as far as it
goes, the selection is judicious and tasteful, and
the arrangement of the airs happy. One or two
of the melodies are new, even to us ; and the
style of the accompaniments to most of them does
Mr. Wilson great credit as a professional man and
man of taste. That they may help the musical
world to a truer appreciation of the merits of these
ancient strains, we not only wish but believe ; and
we recommend them as likely to conduce to this
desirable end. — We may also add, that the notes
appended to the melodies and the songs, to which
they are linked, are written in an agreeable style,
and afford much pleasing information as to the
subject of which they treat. On the whole, this
is the best collection of Scottish national music,
as far as it goes, that we have yet seen.

THE BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM.

278

From the Boston Courier.
THE BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM.

Great Britain is at the present moment more
embarrassed by her colonies than she was in 1775.
Then the only embarrassment was a dispute as to
a single measure of colonial government. Now
it has become a question whether the system of
colonial government itself can be carried on. The
enormous administrative machine by which the
scattered territories of the British empire are held
together, is discovered to be too cumbrous for any
common efforts of mortal man in office to manage.
This vast political body may be compared to a
giant, whose muscular power is so impeded that
he is compelled to carry the legs which were de-
signed to carry him. The colonies have till very
lately been regarded as constituting no small part
of the vital strength of the British nation. But
a change has come over the views of statesmen
and political economists, and it is audibly whis-
pered in the ears of Englishmen that the foreign
dependencies of Great Britain are incumbrances,
and cannot be cast off too soon. In plain lan-
guage, England cannot govern her colonies. Ev-
erything goes wrong with them, and will go
wrong, in spite of the money spent, settlers ship-
ped off, the governors salaried, the acres granted,
the charters framed, and the bounties paid. The-
ories have promised fair, but the footing up of the
national ledger has most wofully falsified all these
promises. There is no standing out against arith-
metic, and every calculating politician is asking
what the colonies are good for when they do not
pay their own expenses. In a debate in the
House of Commons, on the colonial system, Sir
William Molesworth made the following state-
ment of the cost of the existing method of govern-
ing the British colonies : —

In the course of the last fifteen years, the colo-
nies have directly cost Great Britain at least £60.-
000,000 in the shape of military, naval, civil, and
extraordinary expenditure, exclusive of the «£20.-
000,000 which were paid for the abolition of sla-
very. Therefore, the total direct cost of the
colonies has been at least £"80,000,000 in the last
fifteen years. Now, if honorable members would
merely take the trouble of recalling to their minds
the chief events which were taking place in the
colonies, whilst this money was expending, they
must at once admit that the result of the expendi-
ture has been far from satisfactory, either to the
United Kingdom or to the colonies ; and I think
they will likewise admit that there must be some-
thing essentially faulty in a policy which, at such
an enormous cost, produces the results which I will
briefly enumerate to the house. In the first place,
in our North American dependencies, within the
last fifteen years there has been a conflict of races,
ending in civil war; two rebellions — one in Upper
Canada and one in Lower Canada, suppressed at
great cost in this country ; various constitutions
destroyed or suspended ; two hostile provinces
united by means of intrigue and corruption ; and
now, it is said, I hope most untruly, that the war
of races is about to be renewed. If this should
happen, and should lead to civil strife and rebellion,
and if Great Britain should unhappily attempt to
suppress it by force of arms, that attempt, if suc-

cessful, will cost many millions more than the for-
mer rebellion, for the rebels will be, not the poor
ignorant habitans of Canada, but the fierce and en-
ergetic Anglo-Saxon population.

Eighty millions sterling paid in fifteen years
for governing people who could govern themselves
much better, may indeed be called " far from sat-
isfactory," considering that the home population
of the British empire are starving by thousands,
tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands.
How much more will Great Britain expend in
this costly amusement of maintaining garrisons
and governors all over the world? A time will
come when she can no longer pay them. Sir
W. Molesworth draws the following contrast be-
tween colonies and self-governed territories : —

Experience has satisfied me that under our pres-
ent system of colonial government, no gentleman —
no man of birth or education — ought to think of
emigrating to any one of the British dependencies ;
and I feel satisfied that if our colonial system con-
tinue unreformed, the better class of emigrants who
wish to seek their fortunes in a new world, where
there is less competition, and a more open field for
youthful energy and enterprise, will be more and
more apt to direct their steps to the United States of
America, where they will enjoy institutions and self-
government of English origin, and will not be liable
to have their prospects marred by the ignorant and
capricious interference of distant and irresponsible au-
thorities, or of their ill-selected instruments. With-
in the last five-and-twenty years, as I have already
said, about two millions of persons have emigrated
from this country. One million have gone directly
to the United States of America, and about 800,-

000 to our North American colonies — of the latter,
more than one half have reemigrated to the United
States. Therefore, in all probability, three fourths
of the emigration from this country during the last
five-and-twenty years has been to the United States
(in fact, last year, three fourths of the emigrants
from this country, 188,000 out of 248,000, went
directly to the United States.) It is not improba-
ble, therefore, that the number of persons now liv-
ing in the United States, who were born British
subjects, is as great as the whole number of per-
sons of British and Irish descent in all our depen-
dencies. I ask, why do emigrants prefer the
United States to the British colonies 1 I ask this
question not from any feelings of jealousy of the
United States. For I look upon those states as the
greatest, the most glorious, and most useful chil-
dren of England ; for their inhabitants I entertain
the strongest regard and affection. I rejoice that
we are assisting them in peopling their far west.

1 rejoice at everything which promotes their inter-
ests and redounds to their honor. I believe these
feelings are entertained and returned by the in-
structed and reflecting men of both countries — I be-
lieve that trade, emigration, and similarity of institu-
tions are daily strengthening the* ties between Great
Britain and her independent colonies ; and thence I
augur the happiest consequences to our race.

THE HUNGARIAN STRUGGLE.

The following note has been addressed by Count
Ladislas Teleki (Hungarian representative in Par-
is) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French
republic : —

Monsieur le Ministre :— Events press onward.
The intervention of Russia is a reality. After hav-

THE HUNGARIAN STRUGGLE.

279

ing gloriously resisted the armies of Austria, Hun-
gary finds herself now upon the point of being
crushed under the weight of a new Holy Alliance,
reorganized on Cossack principles. The manifesto
of the Czar Nicholas leaves no further doubt on this
subject. The Emperor Joseph publicly avows him-
self the ally of the foreigner who invades his states.
The fact of this Russian intervention, solicited in
the name of the Emperor-king of Hungary, is what
has above all other things led the National Assem-
bly of Hungary to declare the dechcance of the house
of Hapsburg-Lorraine, which had already violated
every engagement, and broken all the compacts, by
virtue of which they have for more than three cen-
turies possessed the crown of Hungary.

I have given the details relative to the Hungarian
question in two of my notes, presented to the Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs of the French republic, in
October, 1848, and in March of the present year, as
well as in a manifesto addressed in the name of
Hungary to the civilized nations of Europe, and
which I had likewise the honor to present to the
minister of the republic in December, 1848.

Since then, this question has assumed greater di-
mensions : henceforward it has a European impor-
tance.

It. now becomes my duty to sum up, in a few
words, that which has relation to the just right of
Hungary in the deadly struggle which she has to
bear against Absolutism, and which identifies her
cause with that of civilization and freedom in gen-
eral.

1. The legal right of Hungary. — Hungary has
ever been independent of Austria. Ferdinand I.,
the first prince of the house of Austria that ever
reigned in Hungary, received the crown in 1526, in
accordance with an election by the diet. He swore
to maintain the constitution and the independence
of Hungary. All his successors took the same
oath. The crown of Hungary first became heredi-
tary in the house of Hapsburgh in virtue of the
Pragmatic Sanction, passed by the estates of Hun-
gary in 1687. In 1723 this settlement was extend-
ed by the Hungarian diet to the female line of the
house of Hapsburg (second Pragmatic Sanction.)
But the independence of Hungary was maintained
and guarantied not less by these very acts than by
the oaths of all the kings of the house of Hapsburg-
Lorraine, even down to our own days. By article
10 of the year 1790, the Emperor-king Leopold II.
recognized Hungary as a free and independent state,
in its whole legislative and administrative system.
Hence the article 3 of the year 1848, by which a par-
liamentary government was settled in Hungary, in-
troduced no change in its relations to Austria. This
law was no more than a development of all the fore-
going laws. It was passed by a unanimous vote of
the two houses in the Hungarian diet, and was for-
mally sanctioned by the king, Ferdinand V.

All that we demanded of the house of Austria
was that our charter should henceforward be a
truth ; our demands did not go one step beyond
what had been guarantied to us in succession by all
our kings.

2. Conduct of the house of Austria. — The house
of Austria has broken all her engagements with
Hungary, from the moment when, in consequence
of her victory over the army of Charles Albert in
July, she felt herself strong enough to venture it.
She put in force every means which could lead to
her end of overthrowing the Hungarian constitution,
and incorporating Hungary in her Austrian mon-
archy.

She publicly preached revolt abroad ; she raised
up national hatreds among us ; she excited men to
pillage, to burn, to murder; she awakened the en-
mity of the poor against the rich ; she offered the
hand of friendship to all our enemies ; she decreed
the partition of LIungary into numerous provinces ;
she launched armies against us, and declared all
those to be rebels who remained faithful to their
country and its laws. Last of all, she has called in
Russia to her aid, and has thus caused her own
states to be invaded by the most dangerous of her
own rivals.

It is, therefore, in the exercise of a legal right,
that the Hungarian diet has decreed the decheance
of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, which has
shown itself the most bitter enemy of our country.
I feel an intimate conviction, that Europe, that
France, ought to take an interest in us.

For we are at once the champions of freedom and
of legal order ; we are the defenders of good and of
society ; and it is the house of Austria which, in
reference to us and to our constitution, legally guar-
antied, is in the state of rebellion.

3. Hungary is the champion of civilization. —
This Russian intervention is totally adverse to the
interests of the whole of Europe. Austria has
always been looked upon as the proper bulwark of
Europe against Russia. But this intervention is the
death of Austria. It would be absurd to imagine
that Russia marches her armies, and perils her
finances, with the sole object of setting up a barrier
against herself. Her intervention, therefore, will
be nothing but a means of subjugating Austria.
Besides, we know very well what are the real in-
tentions of Russia with regard to the Sclavic popu-
lations of the Austrian empire. The Russian auto-
crat already looks upon himself in the light of their
legitimate sovereign. Hence, when she has suc-
ceeded in reconstituting Austria after her own fash-
ion, Russia will have pushed herself, in fact, as far
as Germany ; this is what must be expected, if we
are crushed. Under such circumstances, will Tur-
key, already wounded by the occupation of Moldavia
and Wallachia, have power to bear the shock of the
Northern Colossus 1

No ! all is destined to be subdued in its turn. Af-
ter having invaded Austria, Russia will have the
Bosphorus. Europe will no longer possess any
bulwark against her. Thus, in combating the Rus-
sians we are serving the interests of the whole of
Europe.

Our army amounts to very nearly 200,000 men,
perfectly drilled and disciplined, together with an
imposing force of artillery. The force of Turkey
is hardly inferior ; and she has, besides, her fleet
and the Egyptian contingent. This strength is
more than is required to resist the Russians. The
intervention of Russia could not take place — at all
events, could not succeed — if advantage were taken
of these forces, if pains were taken to invite them.
France has only to will it. Let me hope that she
will not look on with an indifferent eye upon this
intervention — that she will have the will to prevent
it.

For the policy of Russia, at last unmasked by the
manifesto of the Czar Nicholas, proves sufficiently
that he looks upon himself as the natural enemy of
all civilized people, and, as a final consequence, of
France. It proves that, in her present attack upon
us, Russia is only taking up a strong position, by
rendering Austria subject to herself.

Let me entreat you to take into consideration the
respect for existing rights which the national gov-

280

ROME.

ernraent of Hungary maintains, even against its
own interest. While the Austro-Russian troops
were violating the neutrality of the Turkish terri-
tory in Wallachia, the general of the Hungarian
forces made it his duty to respect it ; he halted
his men upon the frontiers of Transylvania, at a
moment when, by imitating the enemy's example,
and pursuing him into the Turkish territory, he
could have put the Austro-Russians in a condition
to do him no further mischief.

Pardon me, M. le Ministre, for having troubled
you with so many details ; but this was for me a
sacred duty, which I could not avoid fulfilling.

I am a Hungarian — I owe myself to the cause of
my country. I am the representative of her inter-
ests— it is my duty to defend them — and I do so in
the intimate conviction that the interests of all hu-
manity are sharers in our own.

Your own feelings towards the cause I represent
are a pledge that you will give a favorable reception
to these lines.

Be pleased, M. le Ministre, to accept, &c,

Compte Ladislas Teleki.
M. de Tocqueville, Minister of
Foreign Affairs.

From the London Times.

The policy of violence towards Hungary has
proved in all respects a dangerous policy ; but the
necessity it has involved of applying for Russian
assistance stamps it with a more fatal character.
It can never have been supposed that the Emperor
Nicholas was to be summoned to the field in the
character of a mere auxiliary. The immense mag-
nitude of the forces he has put in motion, and the
positions claimed by the Russian generals in the
scheme of the campaign, clearly indicate that, from
the moment at which the Russian operations com-
mence, they will absorb the whole interest of the
war. The reports which have already been circu-
lated, of the advance of Russian divisions into Hun-
gary, are exceedingly incorrect ; properly speaking,
the campaign has not yet opened, and great doubt
prevails as to the intentions of the Russian emperor.
The delay which has already occurred will materi-
ally increase the difficulties of the campaign, in the
hottest and most inconvenient months of the year ;
and since the struggle will assume the character of
a foreign war with a detested enemy, we are by no
means convinced that the result will be as speedy
as anticipated at Warsaw, or as satisfactory as has
been anticipated at Vienna.

Meanwhile, although the debility of Austria has
thus reduced her to open the inner frame-work of
the empire to foreign armies, her own military op-
erations in other parts of Europe have been inordi-
nately extended. The imperial forces in Italy have
occupied Florence, taken Bologna, and laid siege to
Ancona, in their anxiety to share with the French
republic in the suppression of Italian insurrections ;
and Marshal Radetzky reigns in Milan in semi-inde-
pendence of the ordinary ministers of the crown. In
Germany the policy of Austria is less active, but
not less resolute. She has her troops in the Vo-
rarlberg and in the garrison of Mayence ; she sup-
ports Bavaria in her repugnance to join the Prussian
Sonderbund ; and she awaits the course of events
without apparently the smallest intention of waiving
the rights she has so long enjoyed in the Germanic
body.

To sustain the military and political influence of
a state over so vast an extent of territory — not con-
fined even by the frontiers of Austria, but reaching
from Wallachia to the Rhine, and descending be-

yond the Apennines to the south— would appear to
demand either boundless resources, or a very close
alliance with the other countries engaged in these
transactions. But it is notorious that the financial
resources of Austria are reduced to a low ebb, and
that her resources in men are seriously curtailed by
the Hungarian war, which not only stops the rein-
forcements ordinarily derived from that warlike peo-
ple, but demands other troops to oppose the Magyar
combatants. In Italy the arrangement with France
is one which an accident on the theatre of war, or a
change of rule in Paris, might at any time convert
into direct hostility, and the conclusion of a defini-
tive peace with Sardinia is as remote as ever. In
Germany the policy of Austria evidently requires
the firm adherence of the court of Munich, to which
that of Wurtemberg may perhaps be added. But
all these circumstances tend to render the cabinet
of Vienna more dependent on Russia, and to give
Russia a decisive influence, through the court of
Vienna, upon the principal questions now agitated
in Europe.

That is a result deeply to be deplored, not only
for the welfare and dignity of Austria, but for the
tranquillity and progress of the continent. We have
done justice to the firmness with which the Empe-
ror Nicholas has maintained his position during this
general tempest, even in the most unsettled portions
of his own dominions, and we have applauded the
moderation he has more than once expressed tow-
ards other states more agitated than his own em-
pire ; but as the Russian armies, with their immense
stores and materials of war, have gathered on the
eastern frontier of Europe, it is impossible not to
remark a more enthusiastic and less guarded tone in
the language attributed to the autocrat. His acts,
however, have not yet corresponded to this lan-
guage. The postponement of the operations in
provinces so contiguous to his own territories has
been thought to imply hesitation ; and certainly the
disposition of the Austrian generals and troops tow-
ards their northern allies is not encouraging. The
campaign is unpopular in both armies, and it were
well if circumstances were even now to arise which
might prevent it. The events of the last few days
in Paris, and the consolidation of the present French
government upon the failure of the last and most
daring enterprise of the Red Republic, are highly
favorable to the maintenance of peace, and it is ex-
tremely to be desired that Austria, which has so
much cause, to desire the removal of the burdens of
war, should adopt the policy best calculated to ter-
minate these contentions. On the other hand, the
various insurgents of Italy, Germany and Hungary
have less reason than ever to count on the active
support of the revolutionary faction in France, which
has just been so signally defeated.

ROME.

We copy two letters of Mazzini, which have
won for him the applause of the most prejudiced.
The New York Evening Post says : — The moral
sense of united Christendom has been outraged by
the proceedings of the French army before the
walls of Rome. If the fate of Korah and his
abandoned followers had overtaken them, and the
earth had opened and swallowed up the whole
army and its leaders, the chief regret that such
an event ought to have inspired would have been,
that the men who instigated and directed this out-

ROME.

281

rage upon the liberties and lives of the Roman
people, had not been among its victims.

THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATE TO M. LESSEPS.

Rome, May 25.

Monsieur, — We had the honor to furnish you, in
our note of the 16th, with some information relative
to the unanimity with which the Roman govern-
ment had been established. We have at present to
address you on the question, as it is actually placed,
in point of fact and of law, between the French
government and our own. You will permit us to
do so with all the frankness called for by our situa-
tion, and the sympathies which should prevail be-
tween France and Italy.- Our diplomacy is the
truth ; and the character given to your mission,
sir, is to us a guarantee that the best possible con-
struction will be given to all that we have the honor
to say.

Permit us to look back for a moment at the source
of the actual situation.

In consequence of conferences held and arrange-
ments made some time since, without the govern-
ment of Rome being asked to take part, it was
decided by the Catholic Powers — 1. That a political
modification should take place in the government
and institutions of the Roman States. 2. That the
modification should be based on the restoration of
Pius IX., not as Pope — which would have found no
opposition from us — but as temporal prince. 3.
That if an intervention were necessary to secure
that object, an intervention should be made.

We are willing to admit that, whilst with some
of the contracting governments, the dream of a
general restoration and the absolute return to the
treaties of 1815 was indulged, France was misled
into cooperation with them, in consequence of erro-
neous information given to it, by which it was sys-
tematically alleged that the Roman territory was in
a state of anarchy, and tyrannized over by terror,
exercised in the name of an odious minority. We
likewise know, that in the proposed modification,
the French government sought to exercise an influ-
ence, more or less liberal, opposed to the absolutist
programme of Austria and Naples. Nevertheless,
it is true that, whether under despotic or constitu-
tional forms, with or without liberal guarantees for
the Roman people, the ruling idea of all was to re-
turn to times gone by, and to arrange a transaction
between the Roman people and the Pope, as temporal
sovereign.

We cannot conceal, sir, that the French expedi-
tion was planned and executed under the influence
of that idea. The expedition had for its object, on
the one hand, to throw the sword of France into the
scale of negotiations about to be opened at Rome,
and guarantee, on the other hand, the Roman people
from any retrograde excess; but, in any case, it
was resolved that a constitutional monarchy should
be reconstructed in favor of the Holy Pontiff. Apart,
sir, from the information we possess relative to the
concert of Austria, from the result of the several
interviews had with General Oudinot, the formal
declarations given by successive agents to the Tri-
umvirate, the silence so obstinately maintained
whenever we sought to open the political question,
and obtain a positive answer to the doubts suggested
in our note of the 15th, we hold it to be a fact that
you have the means within your own power of as-
certaining that the institutions by which the Roman
States are now governed arise from the free expres-
sion of the popular voice, and from the spontaneous

and inviolable wishes of the people, legally consulted.
Indeed, the discussion, which took place in the
French National Assembly, and the vote of that
body, prove in the fullest manner the truth of all
we say.

In face of such a situation, and under the menace
of an inadmissible " transaction," and of negotiations
which the condition of our people in no manner justi-
fies, the part we have to play is no longer doubtful.
We owe it to our country, to France, to all Europe,
to fulfil honorably, and to the last, the mission with
which we are charged — freely given, and freely ac-
cepted— namely, to maintain for our country, as far
as it is possible, the inviolability of its territory, and
of the institutions legally proclaimed. We desired
time to appeal to France well informed from France
badly informed, in order that the republic might
be saved from the stain and remorse which it must
suffer if, carried along by bad foreign advice, she
becomes, almost at the moment of her own creation,
the accomplice of a crime for which we can find no
parallel without reverting to the year 1772, and the
first division of Poland. We owe it to Europe to
maintain, as much as depends on us, the fundamental
principle of international life, and the independence
of every people as far as their internal affairs are
concerned. We say this without pride, for, whilst
it is with enthusiasm that we resist the invasion of
the Italian monarchy, and our eternal enemy, Aus-
tria, it is with profound grief that we are compelled
to oppose a French army, as we think we have de-
served, in following the line just pointed out, credit,
not only from our own country, but from all Euro-
pean people, and especially from France.

We come now, sir, to the actual question. You
are aware, sir. of all the circumstances that have
occurred since the French invasion. Our territory
has been violated by the King of Naples. 4,000
Spaniards embarked on the 17th, directed to our
coast to invade it ; the Austrians, after having over-
come the heroic resistance of Bologna, have ad-
vanced into the Romagna, and are now in full march
for Ancona.

We have beaten and expelled from our territory
the forces of the King of Naples. We will do the
same with those of Austria, if the position of the
French army does not interfere with our operations.

It is with regret that we thus speak ; but it must
be known, sir, how much the French expedition to
Civita Vecchia costs us at present.

It is painful to affirm these things ; but we state
that of all the interventions by which we are now
oppressed, that of France has been to us the most
fatal. Against the soldiers of Naples and Austria
we can freely fight, and God will protect the just
cause ; but we do not wish to fight against the
French. We are, as respects France, in a state,
not of war, but of defence. But this position— the
only one we wish to maintain when we meet French-
men— has for us all the inconvenience, without any
of the favorable chances, of war.

The French expedition, sir, in the first instance,
compelled us concentrate our troops, which has left
our frontier open to the Austrian invasion. Bologna
and the towns of the Romagna have been ungar-
risoned, and the Austrians have taken advantage of
that fact. After eight days of heroic defence, sus-
tained by the population, Bologna fell. We pur-
chased in France arms to defend our liberties ; of
these arms 10,000 stand at least have been seized
between Civitia Vecchia and Marseilles. By one
blow you have taken from us 10,000 soldiers, for
every armed man is a soldier against the Austrians.

2S2

ROME.

Your forces are still under our walls, almost
within gun-shot, disposed for an attack. You com-
pel us to keep the town in a state of defence which
injures our finances. You force us to keep in Rome
that portion of our troops which might be so well em-
ployed in saving our cities from the occupation and
ravages of Austria. You impede our provisions,
our circulation, and our couriers. You keep our
city in a state of excitement which, if our people
were not so prudent and so wise, might occasion
evil consequences. Reaction or disorder cannot
be produced, for both are impossible in Rome ; but
irritation against France is kept alive, and that is an
evil of the first magnitude to those who loved and
expected good from her.

Sir, we are besieged — besieged by France in the
name of a mission of protection ; whilst at some
miles from us the King of Naples, though flying
from us, takes hostages from our towns, and the
Austnans murder our brothers.

You have, sir, presented to us three propositions,
which were deemed inadmissible by the Assembly,
and therefore we have nothing more to say with re-
spect to them. To-day you add another to those
that are rejected. This last proposition declares,
" that France will protect from all foreign invasion
such parts of the Roman territory as are occupied
by its troops." You must yourself, sir, know that
such a proposal in no respect changes the nature
of things. The part of our States occupied by you
is, in fact, protected, but it is only for the present ;
and you insinuate that, for the future, we have no
other means of protection open to us but by placing
all our territory under you.

The difficulty of the question is not there ; it is
in the occupation of Rome. That condition is
placed in the front of all your propositions. But
we have the honor to tell you, sir, that such a con-
dition is impossible. The people will never consent
to it. If the occupation of Rome has for its sole
object the protection of it, the people will thank you
for your kindness ; but they will tell you that they
are able to defend Rome by their own force. They
would be dishonored, even in your eyes, by declar-
ing their impotency, and by stating that some
French regiments were required. If the occupa-
tion has in view — which God forbid — a political
intention, the people, who have voluntarily chosen
their government, will not endure it. Rome is our
capital, the palladium, the holy city. It knows full
well, that independently of its personal honor, civil
war is the result of all foreign occupation. It
doubts all intervention. It foresees, if the troops
were once admitted, changes in men and institutions
which would be dangerous to liberty. It knows
that, in presence of foreign bayonets, the indepen-
dence of its Assembly, of its government, would be
only vain words. It has eternally Civita Vecchia
before its eyes.

On that point, sir, believe me, our opinion is ir-
revocable. We will be massacred from barricade
to barricade, rather than submit. Will the soldiers
of France — will they, can they butcher a nation of
brothers whom they came to assist, because that
people will not give up their capital?

France has the choice of only three roles for its
action in the Roman States — France must declare
herself either for us or against us, or remain neuter.

To declare for us, is formally to recognize our
republic, and fight side by side with our troops
against the Austrians.

To declare against us, is to destroy, without any
motive, public liberty ; the national life of a friendly

people, and to fight side by side with the Austrians.
France cannot do so. She cannot begin an
European war for the sake of our friendship. Let
her then remain neuter in the struggle between us
and our enemies. This day we demand only her
neutrality.

The occupation of Civita Vecchia is a fact ac-
complished. France thinks it wrong, in the actual
state of things, to remain far from the field of action.
She thinks that whether we be conquerors or con-
quered, we have need of her mediating influence or
of her protection. We do not agree with her, but
we let her think so. Let her, therefore, remain at
Civita Vecchia. Let her even extend her camp, as
the number of her troops now require space, to the
salubrious country between Civita Vecchia and Vi-
terbo. Let her then await the issue of the battle
which must ere long take place.

All facilities are offered. Proofs of a frank and
loyal sympathy shall be given. The officers may
visit Rome. Her soldiers shall have every possible
comfort ; but her neutrality must be sincere and
without arriere pensee. She must declare it in ex-
plicit terms. She must leave us free to throw our
soldiers in the battle's front. She must deliver up
our arms. She must not close with her cruisers
our ports to the men who come from other parts of
Italy to our aid. Above all, let her leave the vicinity
of our walls, and let all appearance of hostility cease
between two people destined ere long to be united
in the same international creed, as they are to-day
in the adoption of the same form of government.

Receive, sir, the assurance of our distinguished
consideration.

Armellini, )
Saffi, >

Mazzini, )

The Paris National publishes the following
letter from M. Mazzini, refusing to attend a
conference which that journal declares was pro-
posed to him, non-official ly, by a person of some
standing in General Oudinot's camp :

Rome, June 13.

Sir, — It is impossible for me to go to the advanced
posts to see you. Our conversation, besides, unfor-
tunately for us, could have no issue favorable to your
views and ours. I have the conviction that we have
exhausted all possible means of conciliation, and that
it only remains to us to fight. We will do so — we
will do so, you may be assured, from wall to wall,
from street to street, from barricade to barricade.
We may be conquered, but not put down. We had
flattered ourselves with the hope that France would
at length feel how much there is noble, sacred, and
worthy of herself in our attitude, and what there is
— permit me to be frank — contradictory and tyran-
nical in the part that she plays here with us. We
have proclaimed towards France, not a state war,
but a state of defence ; we have sent back your
prisoners ; we have rejected all the occasions which
presented themselves to us to combat your troops
with advantage ; we offered healthy cantonments
to those who could not be accommodated at Civita
Vecchia, and we declared that we were ready to con-
cede all, one thing excepted — the occupation of
Rome. And, yet, that is what is required. France
after having fought against us, blockaded us, dis-
armed us, deprived us of all our resources, con-
demned us to see, with arms in our hands, our ter-
ritory invaded by Austria, now says to us, "I will

THE SIEGE OF HOME.

283

have Rome. I will have it without conditions,
without a programme, or I will endeavor to crush
it, to bombard its monuments, which are venerated
by all Europe, and to massacre its brave popula-
tion." To that, you must perceive, sir, that there
is only one reply to make, and we shall make it. I
know not whether we shall fall, but I know that
there are falls which confer honor.
I have the honor, &c.

Joseph Mazzini.

From the Examiner, 30 June.
THE SIEGE OF ROME.

Never certainly did a great country, and a gov-
ernment concentrating its wisdom and command-
ing its resources, bring itself into so disgraceful
and pitiable a predicament as that in which France
now stands before the gates of Rome. A brave ar-
my of 30,000 soldiers is there, doomed to dishonor
if it succeed, to disgrace if it fail. Succeed in-
deed it cannot, for the force is not great enough
to awe a city of so large a population. Yet re-
treat it cannot, for the government, the only gov-
ernment possible in France, would fall under the
ridicule of such a failure. Accordingly we read
daily of a kind of siege of Troy, in which the
combatants on both sides are able to effect little
save mutual slaughter, and which, at the same
rate, it would require ten years to finish.

The siege of Troy had an object, however ; the
siege of Rome has none. The French cannot even
tell what they want. They assure the French
public at home that they do not want to restore the
temporal sovereignty of the Pope ; yet the Romans
offer to admit them if they make the same stipula-
tion to them. The French prefer to accomplish
at Rome what the Romans will not consent to, and
what the Pope will not hear of. They send an
expedition without having the sanction of the
Gaeta Conference ; yet they order the Pope to
issue, as the programme of this expedition, certain
constitutional concessions to his people. This,
declare the French, will give a pretext and a sanc-
tion to our enterprise, and all the moderate men
of Rome will rally to us and admit us. The Pope,
however, refuses to say one word ; and the French
army, arriving before Rome without Papal sanc-
tion, yet without liberal purpose, refuses to ex-
plain its views, and employs merely the language
of the robber, " Your city or your life."

Whilst the French have entreated the Pope to
do what he has not done, their injunctions to Aus-
tria are equally disregarded. They begged of
Austria not to occupy Bologna. The Austrian
generals replied by bombarding Bologna and lay-
ing Ancona in ashes. The French are bombard-
ing Rome, and it is quite evident that the glee
and exultation of both Italian cardinals and Aus-
trian generals are extreme. They see their worst
enemies and rivals pounding each other and cover-
ing each other with ridicule and disaster. The
two democracies of Rome and France are as wild
beasts to them, which they delight to see employed
in mutual destruction and slaughter. They stand
aloof and applaud at a distance the spectacle of

Mazzini and Oudinot tearing each other. Every
shot from a French gun kills not only a Roman,
but Roman respect and love for Frenchmen and
their aid. Every Roman sortie turns to bitter-
ness and illiberal hate the old French sympathies
for Italian liberalism. Metternich and Nicholas
combined could not have conceived, much less or-
dained, a set of events more useful, more flattering,
or more congenial to them, than the exploits of
Oudinot Furioso before the walls of Rome.

No single occurrence of this memorable siege
so strongly marks the false, the ridiculous, and de-
graded position of the French, as that which took
place in the last interview between the French
general and the Roman envoys. Oudinot actually
proposed to them that they should unite to play a
trick upon the world ; that the Romans should
allow him to effect a breach and storm it, and that
they should then capitulate, or seem to capitulate,
the moment the breach was stormed, in order to
give both parties the character of heroism. What
a glorious artifice! What a dignified proposal !
What means of obtaining glory and achieving mil-
itary reputation ! We have heard of duellists ac-
quiring renown by fighting without balls in their
pistols ; but a mock breach, entered by a mock
storming party, sure to encounter nothing more
deadly than a previously arranged capitulation, this
certainly is a comedie which it was a pity the Ro-
mans refused to enact, for it would have been
unique in the annals of histrionic warfare.

Another trick, worthy of the same school, was,
that when the Roman envoys entered Oudinot's
quarters they saw on his table a number of blank
papers signed by Pius IX., and left for the French
general to fill up. Such papers could not have
been left there to be seen, but on purpose to make
it be believed that General Oudinot had full pow-
ers from the Pope. And yet it is quite evident
that Pio Nono had by no means given such carte
blanche, and that his holiness is in nowise prepared
to abet the violent proceedings of the French.

The French people, however, are quite as much
ashamed of what the general is doing at Rome as
any other people can be. They say, indeed,
nothing. The press is silent. During two days'
parliamentary debate on foreign politics, Rome was
not alluded to. Every Frenchman feels that the
honor and interest of the nation has been ignomin-
iously staked. All are ready to condemn the silly
and despicable minister that has committed such a
blunder ; but all are determined to wait, instead
of throwing any obstacle in the way of a French
general and army extricating themselves from rid-
icule and disgrace. Every one concerned in this
campaign will assuredly be called to a certain and
dire account.

Lord Aberdeen on Thursday night made an ef-
fort to implicate our government in the papal cru-
sade. His lordship, who acts the political poet
laureat of Austria, as usual was loud in praise of
Radetzki. According to Lord Aberdeen the Brit-
ish government ought to have protested against the
bombardment of Rome, and graciously applauded

284

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN AUSTRIA. HUNGARIAN EXILES.

the bombardments of Bologna and Ancona. For
ourselves we are not sorry to see that the British
government do neither the one nor the other. It is
the manifest desire of the country and of Parlia-
ment that we should not interfere. How far and
with what views the British government have in-
terfered hitherto in Italy was exceedingly well
and fully explained by General Cavaignac. He
said, that the British allied with France, and me-
diated in conjunction with France, in order to
obviate war ; and that the alliance was stipulated
not to extend beyond the first act of war. So it
has been found at Rome. With the first military
expedition of the French to Italy, England with-
drew. And the mere act of its withdrawal is
disapprobation sufficiently marked, without un-
neighborly remonstrance. If the British govern-
ment is to take a hostile attitude towards France,
that must be reserved for Lord Aberdeen's next
administration.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN AUSTRIA.

Never were the plans of the Vienna cabinet
more ambitious than at present, under the guid-
ance of Prince Schwartzenberg. In Germany he
is trying to place Austria at the head of a South-
German league, and for this purpose is encourag-
ing the ultra-democratic party at Berlin to throw
impediments in the way of Prussia. In Italy he
is interfering in the Tuscan and Roman territories.
And yet, at this very moment, Austria is on the
verge of a national bankruptcy.

This will not be a novelty in Austrian history,
it is true. An over-issue of paper money during
the French war led to the famous plan of Count
Wallis in 1811, which was carried into execution
in spite of the urgent remonstrances of the Hun-
garian diet. By this measure the public creditor
was compelled to accept a composition of eight shil-
lings in the pound. On the return of peace the
Austrian statesmen were still unable to preserve a
due balance between revenue and expenditure. In-
deed, it was impossible ; for while on the on"
hand production was checked by all manner of
absurd regulations ; on the other, two enormous
armies, one of military troops, the other of paid
civil functionaries, had to be maintained, in order
lo govern the people in their own despite. Every
year there was a deficit, which varied of course in
different years. In 1837 it amounted to about
two millions sterling ; the revenue having been
about £ 15,434,000, and the expenditure about
£17,305,000. Additional loans had to be con-
tracted in a time of profound peace ; two, three, or
four millions sterling at a time, and that frequently ;
so that in March, 1848, the Austrian national debt
amounted to about £120,000,000, on which the
yearly interest due was about ,£4,500,000.

Since that period the financial difficulties of
Austria have gone on hourly increasing. What
the real amount of the deficit has been it is im-
possible to say. The diet at Vienna authorized
the raising of two millions sterling ; at Olmiitz

nineteen millions additional were considered neces-
sary. These sums were to be obtained by any
measure that could be found practicable, partly by
loan, partly by exchequer bills. But no capital-
ists would take the loans ; and the paper money
already existing is at such a discount as to render
a further issue, to any considerable extent, im-
practicable. Specie has almost disappeared. Notes
of tioo shillings value are cut into eight parts by
individuals for private circulation ; but change
cannot be had for such a bit of paper representing
threepence, without paying a premium for copper
amounting to 10 or 12 per cent. Eightpcnny and
fourpenny notes are now being issued; but in order
to meet the requirements of retail trade, any note
is too high which exceeds the value of one kreu-
zer (five kreuzers being equal to twopence ;) and
it will even then be necessary to force the circu-
lation of the paper money by compulsory measures
— a step which has already been taken at Cracow.
The imperial bank of Vienna has long since
suspended cash payments, nor does there appear
the slightest probability of its ever resuming them.
The cabinet is at its wits' end for expedients.
All manner of plans are devised, one of the most
notable of which is a voluntary loan, as it is
euphemistically termed, of sixty millions of flor-
ins, or six millions sterling. Even if the Hunga-
rians were crushed and the Russians withdrawn
to-morrow, Austria must sink under the weight of
her financial difficulties. — Examiner, June 30.

HUNGARIAN EXILES.

It has been a subject of surprise and even of
complaint with some of the liberal journals, that
the Hungarian soldiers in Radetzki's army did not
at once, or at least at the earliest moment, make
common cause with their Italian antagonists. The
complaint or the wonder thus expressed resembles
the well-known good advice of single gentlemen to
their married acquaintance — offered in general ig-
norance of the circumstances and conditions of the
case in point.

We are enabled in some measure to explain
why the Hungarians have not deserted sooner, and
why they have deserted in such small numbers.
For the most part confined in garrisons, or mixed
up with the Croatian regiments, combination has
been impossible, and even conference dangerous. At
length from 150 to 200 of the common soldiers, and
two officers, eluded the vigilance of their comrades
or commanders, joined the Sardinian army, and took
part in the battles of Mortara and Novara. But
one among the articles of armistice between Ra-
detzky and Charles Albert was, that all Lombards
or Hungarians serving under the Sardinian banner
should be immediately given up to Austria. The
government at Turin conveyed to their brave
allies an intimation of this demand, and connived
at their escape from their several regiments.

A portion of the fugitives took refuge in Swit-
zerland, but the larger number made their way
through the passes of Savoy into France. At

THE WAR IN HUNGARY.

28;

Grenoble their arrival was announced to the
French government. The minister of the interior
ordered them an allowance of about ninepence per
diem ; but when they halted, no further means
were granted for their lodging or maintenance.
They remained for a few weeks in the interior,
and were then ordered to proceed to Boulogne.
In the mean while repeated offers, or rather solici-
tations, were made to them, to enlist in the Le-
gion Etrangere, destined for service in Algeria.
But although among the most gallant and expe-
rienced members of their several regiments, war
was not to them a trade ; and they unanimously
refused to serve for hire, while their fellow-coun-
trymen at home were fighting for freedom. On
quitting their temporary places of refuge in the
interior, they received from the maire or prefet a
certificate of good conduct during their stay ; and
in no instance has this certificate been refused
them. On their rejection of mercenary service
they were ordered to quit France, and are now in
London. About two thirds are hussars, the re-
mainder infantry.

It is the most earnest wish of these brave and
suffering — we dare not call them, in such a cause,
unfortunate men — to proceed at once to the seat
of war in Hungary, and to aid their countrymen
with the valor and experience acquired in less
worthy conflicts. But although they are men
who have faced every form of danger, difficulty
and privation, and although many of them are
veterans who would grace Caesar's tenth legion
itself, poverty — not absolute, but comparative —
impedes their wish. They crave not, like Burns,
leave to labor, but, in Burns' indomitable spirit,
leave to fight in the most sacred of causes, the de-
fence of their native land from the oppressions of
the x\ustrian cabinet and Muscovite intervention.

Their banner may bear the scroll of
Manus hcec inimica tyrannis.

Examiner, 30 June.

THE WAR IN HUNGARY.

Executions are still the order of the day in
Presburg. Very recently General Haynau or-
dered the Hungarian commander of the troops who
formed the garrison of the fortress Leopoldstadt,
(which surrendered unconditionally, in the begin-
ning of February, to the Austrians,) as well as the
commander of the artillery of that place, to be
tried by court-martial and hung. The first of
these gallant men, Baron Ladislaw Mednianszky,
was a branch of one of the noblest families in Hun-
gary. He was only 32 years of age, and had
lately been married. He had previously served
in the Austro-Hungarian life guards, but having
retired from service, held no rank in the Austrian
army. His father was privy counsellor, president
of the exchequer, and well known as an author
and statesman. His imputed crime was, that in
the council of war in which the surrender of the
fortress was resolved, he voted for holding out to
the last man. The second victim, Major Grube,

who commanded the artillery of the fortress, was
hanged for remaining with his regiment in the Hun-
garian army, having been an officer in the Aus-
trian army. Haynau ordered him to be tried as an
Austrian deserter. The commandant of the fortress,
Lieut. -Col. Ordody, in consideration of his having
surrendered the place after the first bombardment,
was sentenced to only eight years of close confine-
ment in a fortress. Selvio Pellico has informed
us what the carcere duro is. Imagine the English
acting thus towards the garrison of the fortress of
Mooltan !

Nor has Haynau been satisfied with the execu
tion of honorable officers. He lately ordered to
be hanged the Protestant clergyman Razga, of
Presburg, a man of superior education, and one
of the most celebrated preachers in Hungary,
With true evangelical courage and devotion, Raz-
ga at the foot of the gallows harangued the crowd ,
telling them he forgave his enemies, and adjuring
every one to love his country. Such scenes tend
more and more to exasperate the people, and it is
scarcely possible that Kossuth can much longer
restrain them from having recourse to reprisals.
Up to this moment the Austrian officers who have
been taken prisoners by the Hungarians, number-
ing more than 200, and amongst them above twenty
superior officers, two generals, and three colonels,
are very handsomely treated at Debreczin, and re-
ceive their monthly pay. The private soldiers
are employed in improving the navigation of the
Theiss, and in the fortification of Tihany.

Military operations have commenced exactly in
the manner we foretold last week. On the Upper
Waag, Gorgey made a sham attack ; and as the
Austrians and Russians were not in a condition to
resist it, he crossed the Waag, following up the
advantages obtained over the enemy, and reached
Galanta. Simultaneously, on the 20th instant,
the main attack was made upon Oedenburg. The
Austrians were beaten, leaving on the battle-field
3,000 killed ; and Oedenburg was taken. Thus
the way to Wiener-Neustadt and to Vienna is
open to the Hungarians, and the Austro-Russian
army, in order to cover these two latter places,
will be obliged to evacuate Presburg.

In the south it is quite evident, even from Jel-
lachich's triumphant bulletins, that he could not
take Neusatz. In the assault upon that town
(which at the same moment burst into flames) he
lost eight pieces of ordnance, and was forced to
retire ; whereupon he swore to take both Neusatz
and Peterwardein, should he even perish in the
attempt. However, Jellachich is not a Hannibal,
and his oaths, as well as his bulletins, excite in
Hungary nothing but contempt.

In the north, Paskiewich, on the 17th instant,
at last crossed the frontier ; and on the 18th was
in Bartfeld. Dembinski awaits him in the defiles
of Raszlovicz and Kapy. Dembinski, whose army
only numbers from 20,000 to 30,000 men, has the
task merely to avoid a decisive battle, whilst, by
incessant skirmishes, and a guerilla warfare, he
prevents Paskiewich from reaching the plain. The

286

NEW BOOKS.

Russians must endeavor to occupy Kashau, as the
key of the plain, and Dembinski to prevent it.
This is the problem to be solved by the contend-
ing generals.

The Russians have not yet made their renewed
attack from the south. Bern is securing- all the
narrow passes, and protecting at the same time
the commercial intercourse with Turkey, via Or-
sova ; for Kossuth has resolved that during the
war a nominal duty only shall be imposed upon
foreign merchandise, and that the importation of
wool, leather, and iron goods, as well as all the
productions used for military purposes, shall be
free from all duty whatever.

In the interior of Hungary the greatest order
prevails. All the garrisons have been sent to-
wards the frontier, but the civil authorities are
sufficient to preserve peace throughout the land.
The harvest has already begun in the south, and
promises to be a most abundant one.

The Hungarians have lately received some rein-
forcements. Three division of Palatinate hus-
sars, who were sent to Italy, endeavored to cut
their way from Upper Austria to Hungary. The
first division succeeded in doing so, but only fifty
men out of the second and third reached Hungary ;
the rest were killed or taken prisoners. More
fortunate, however, was the hussar regiment called
Radetzhy, which, in consequence of the Italian
campaign, had been reduced to 500 men. Accord-
ing to news which has just reached us, these 500
hussars, starting from Massa in Italy, have suc-
ceeded in reaching Hungary without losing a sin-
gle man or horse. They made the most astonish-
ing marches, such as Hungarian hussars alone are
capable of performing ; and passed full gallop
through the detachments of infantry which put
themselves in their way, Radetzky having no
cavalry to send in pursuit. Yet it is scarcely a
week since the Austrian newspapers had the
effrontery to assert that the Hungarian hussars
were deserting to the imperial standard ! — Exam-

NEW BOOKS.

The Woodman ; a Romance of the Times of Rich-
ard III. By G. P. R. James. New York :
Harper & Brothers.

If Mr. James writes all the novels that bear his
name in this country, or even dictates them, he is
altogether a most wonderful man. This work,
however, we believe is from his pen, and a new
production to boot. — N. Y. Com. Advertiser.

History of Jidius Ctrsar. By Jacob Abbott. New
York : Harper & Brothers.

Mr. Abbott, having obtained easy and welcome
access to the minds of young people by his charm-
ing series of histories, has acquired an immense
power for good or evil, and a proportionate respon-
sibility. His histories will be read even though
they should teach erroneous sentiments, and it is a
matter of no small gratification to find him always
inculcating good doctrine. We are pleased, also,
that he is carrying back his young readers to

early classical history, and is clothing old facts
with new interest. — N. Y. Com. Advertiser.

Southey's Common Place Book.

There are very few writers, even of eminence,
in whose works we have as much interest as in
their literary habits. There is a very natural and
fervent enthusiasm felt, by all bookish persons at
least, to know the inner life of their literary idols,
and the processes by which they move the hearts
and the understandings of men. Southey was one
of those men whose literary habits and tastes were
strikingly curious. He read everything that no-
body else did, he remembered what other people were
sure to forget, and his whole literary career bore
evidence of this eccentricity. It is scarcely unjust
to his fame to say that a thorough and searching
exposure of his literary modes, made ingenuously
by himself, would have been a far more attractive
work than all he has left behind him.

A shadow of such a work as we speak of, may
be found in the Common Place Book of the poet,
which has just been edited by his son-in-law, John
Wood Waster, and republished in this city by the
Messrs. Harpers. This volume gives one a very
fair idea of the illimitable range of Dr. Southey's
reading, and of the curious taste which led him to
ransack the highest shelves and the darkest corners
of all the libraries in the universe, for books, many
of which, for centuries perhaps, will not be honored
by a second reader.

The reader will bear in mind that the Common
Place Book we refer to contains nothing written
by Southey himself, only extracts from books
which have arrested his attention. It is easy to
detect in each extract the point which attracted the
doctor, and withal exceedingly pleasant and profit-
able to follow him over this immense survey of
books, and enjoy, as he once enjoyed, these striking
passages which he appreciated so highly as to
common-place. This is a book admirably adapt-
ed for occasional reading. The extracts are short,
and will be entirely new to ninety-nine readers in
a hundred, and the remainder will not have seen
one of the extracts in a hundred before. — N. Y.
Evening Post.

Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History; translated from

the German revised edition by Samuel Davidson.

New York : Harper & Brothers. Boston : B.

B. Mussey & Co.

This is a work of deep erudition, which the stu-
dent of ecclesiastical history will find to be a very
valuable assistant in his researches. The form in
which it is cast renders it more useful to the
scholar than to the general reader. Every state-
ment of fact is fortified with abundance of refer-
ences and citations, which comprise of themselves
the learning of a whole library. The predominant
tone of the author is rather critical than dogmatical,
and we believe he has the reputation of strict im-
partiality. We know of no work of the kind ap-
proaching to a popular shape, which affords so
abundant materials for verifying the early annals of
the church. — Boston Courier.

Life in the Far West. By George Frederic Rux-
ton, author of Adventures in Mexico and the
Rocky Mountains. New York : Harper &
Brothers. Boston : Redding and Co.
Mr. Ruxton is the young English officer who
recently died at St. Louis, on his return from Ore-
gon. He was a most ardent and enterprising trav-

NEW BOOKS.

287

eller, and his productions proved that he possessed
considerable mental powers. His earlier work was
interesting, but the one under notice is much its su-
perior, in respect to vividness of description, details
of manners and customs, and the delineation of
character. It is a very interesting book, and it dis-
plays many a novel picture of western and south-
western life. — N. Y. Post.

The History of the United States of America ; from
the Discovery of the Continent to the Organiza-
tion of Government under the Federal Constitu-
tion. By Richard Hildreth. New York :
Harper & Brothers.

This work will be in three octavo volumes, the
first of which is before us. It is proposed, in two
subsequent volumes, to carry the history down to
the present time.

It is probable that Mr. Hildreth's history of these
United States' will be more popular thirty years
hence than in the present day ; and that sixty years
hence it will be still more highly appreciated. We
give this opinion advisedly, although we by no
means regard it as complimentary to the readers of
our own time. The author has departed from a
beaten track. He has done that which a man of
less ability and research, and less self-reliance,
would not have ventured upon ; and which no man
could have done safely who had not expended upon
his task a vastly greater amount of patient care and
labor than, with regret we say it, American his-
torians— and perhaps American writers generally —
bestow upon their productions. Mr. Hildreth has
given us such a history as we have not before
seen, though we have often greatly desired it ; — a
history neither secretly nor avowedly written to
support any favorite theory or peculiar sentiment,
but to put events on record in their naked truth
and force, and the acts of men merely as parts of
current history.

We speak thus strongly in favor of the work
from conviction wrought by a careful examination
of this first volume, having been accommodated
with a copy some days prior to its publication. So
that we have taken time to form our opinions. We
value it because of its impartiality. We have
found nothing to indicate the least desire on the
part of the author to exalt or debase any man or
any party. His very patriotism, though high-
principled and sincere, is sober and discriminate,
and appears to be held in strong check by the con-
trolling recollection that he is writing for the world
and for posterity, and that, if the facts which he
publishes will not honor his country and his coun-
trymen, fulsome laudation cannot add to their
glory. The political advocate, the orator and the
deelaimer are swallowed up in the historian.

Compression is another excellence in this work.
Brief comparatively as is the time covered by this
first volume, (a couple of centuries,) the events to
be narrated are multitudinous and complicated.
Yet by the force of compression every important
fact is recorded, and the whole lucidly, though
briefly, spread before the reader. The mind does
not become wearied with the multiplicity of details,
or confused for want of perspicuity ; but the reader
peruses page after page with the ever-present con-
sciousness that he is heaping up knowledge in the
storehouse of his mind. The author appears to

have a high degree of meehanico-intellectual power
— an essential element of a good historian — and has
well arranged and fitted every part before he has
finally put together his work. So manifest is this,
that we look for the remaining volumes with entire
confidence that they will equal these in the clear-
ness and elegance of their style, and the mechani-
cal beauty and completeness of their arrangement.
No American library will be complete without
this history of the United States. As we have
said, it differs from all others; — and especially in
the fact that it leans to neither locality nor party ;
it is, what it professes to be, a History of the Uni-
ted States, without giving undue preponderance to
any section — and looks at events with unusual can-
dor and dispassionateness. — We can only add that
the publishers have given to it all the advantages
of mechanical and typographical neatness for which
their establishment is famed.

Sermons. By the late Dr. Chalmers. New
York : Harper & Brothers.

There are thirty-three sermons in this volume,
which is the sixth of the " Posthumous Works,"
and they are chronologically arranged, having been
delivered at various times from 1798 to the time of
Dr. Chalmers' death. The first was written be-
fore he was eighteen years old — a " Divinity Hall
class exercise," probably — and the reader will feel
a deep interest in marking the gradual development
of the great preacher's intellectual and spiritual
growth, as he proceeds with the perusal. The
volume is a truthful portrait of Chalmers, the
preacher — which was unquestionably the most im-
posing character of the man — and we regard it as a
rich contribution to theological literature. — N. Y.
Com. Advertiser.

Dante's Divine Comedy ; The Inferno. A Literal
Prose Translation, with the Text of the Original
Collated from the Best Editions, and Explanatory
Notes. By John A. Carlyle, M. D. New
York : Harper & Brothers. Boston : Redding
&Co.

There is little to be added to the information
given by the title-page of this elegant volume.
This prose translation, executed with great care and
fidelity, will be a welcome assistant, as a reference,
to both readers and students of the great Italian.
Of itself, the book is worth nothing, of course ; for
Shakspeare in French prose is about as much our
Shakspeare as Dante is the poet of Italy in an
English prose garb. All translations of poetry are
abominable, for even if undertaken by men as great
as the original authors, they necessarily become
different things in the transfer into other languages,
metres and idioms. On the principle that the worst
pun is the best, a prose translation of poetry is to
be preferred to any other. But few of these are fit
to be read, unless, as in the case of the book of Job,
the ideas are so vast and sublime as to resist all
attempts at annihilation. — N. Y. Post.

Typee ; a Peep at Polynesian Life during a Four
Months'1 Residence in the Valley of the Marquesas.
The Revised Edition, with a Sequel. By Her-
man Melville. Harper & Brothers : New
York.

CONTENTS OF No. 273

1. Narrative of John Ward Gibson,

2. The Bicetre in 1792, -

3. Indian Meal, by Mr. Carlyle,

4. The Kentucky Forger,

8.

The Fool and his Money, ------

On National Melody,

Political. — British Colonial System; Hungarian Strug-
gle ; Rome ; Financial Crisis in Austria ; Hungarian
Exiles ; War in Hungary, -

New Books and Reprints, ------

Bentley's Miscellany, -
Chambers' Journal,
Frazefs Magazine,
Picayune, - - -
N. Y. Evening Post,
British Quarterly Review,

Courier, Times,
National, Examiner,

241
263

265
267
268
269
278
to
286
286

Poetry.— The Three Wishes, 262.

Prospectus. — This work is conducted in the spirit of
Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor-
ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is
twice as lar°e, and appears so often, we not only give
spirit and freshness to it by many things which were
excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our
scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety,
are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of
our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to
satisfy the wants of the American reader.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh,
Quarterly, and other Reviews ; and Blackicood's noble
criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries,
highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and
mountain Scenery ; and the contributions to Literature,
History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator,
tha sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenaeum, the
busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and
comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chris-
tian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military
and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with
the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly,
Preiser's, TaiVs, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag-
azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not
consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom
from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make
•ase of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our
variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and
from the new growth of the British colonies. **

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa,
into our neighborhood ; and will greatly multiply our con-
nections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with
all ^arts of the world ; so that much more than ever it

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ticity of the Skin. The numerous varieties of Cutaneous Eruptions, Sun-Burn, Freckles,
Tan, and Discolorations, are pleasingly eradicated by the Kalydor, and the skin rendered
delicately clear and soft. Its purifying and refreshing properties have obtained its exclusive selection
by the QUEEN, the Court, and the ROYAL FAMILY, together with the "elite" of the Aristocracy, and
"Haute Vol6e.»

A. ROWLAND & SON, London,

NOTICE. — Each article of the genuine Rowland's Preparations has a label
attached, with the name of the Agents thereon, —

"C. F. BRAY & CO., Only Agents, 36 Cornhill, Boston."

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

This Review was commenced in December, 1847, and has been issued quarterly,
until the present time, under the direction of THEODORE PARKER, assisted
by several other gentlemen.

The MASSACHUSETTS QUARTERLY is devoted to the interests of no
particular Clique or Party, and its conductors will endeavour to present an open
and fair field for the notice and discussion of matters pertaining to Philosophy,
Literature, Politics, Religion, and Humanity. The first volume contains
papers on The Mexican "War, The Life and Writings of Agassiz, The Legality of
American Slavery, Education of the People, Svvedenborg as a Theologian, John
Quincy Adams, William Ellery Channing, &c. &c.

Each No. will contain about 125 pages, at the price of $3.00 a year, in advance.

To new subscribers to the second volume, commencing in December, 1848, the
first volume is offered at the low price of $1.50, as long as the printed edition lasts.

COOLIDGE & WILEY, Publishers,

12 Water Street, Eoston, Mas3.

THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER.

This Publication is issued monthly, under the patronage and direction of the
Massachusetts Teachers' Association. Each No. contains 32 pages, with a
cover, at the subscription price of $1.00 a year, in advance. The second volume
begins with January, 1849. The attention'of the Friends of Education in general
is respectfully called to this work, and their subscriptions solicited.

Published by COOLIDGE & WILEY,

12 Water Street, Boston, Mass.